A groundbreaking experimental film essay on race and disorder in Britain, filmed by John Akomfrah from the Black Audio Film Collective in Birmingham and London during the riots of 1985.
A major legacy of Channel 4 in the 1980s was the introduction of the innovative Workshop Movement initiative which in partnership with the local metropolitan councils and the film and television unions, formed a radical approach to media production that aimed to democratise filmmaking and provide voices to marginalized communities.
This would encourage and stimulate filmmaking from diverse – in both ethnicity and class – across the UK. Some of the key ones to emerge were Sankofa, Ceddo, Amber (see In Fading Light) and Black Audio Collective. One of the seminal films produced in this period was Black Audio Collective’s Handsworth Songs, a rich and layered film essay which explores the complex factors - race, class and identity in the context of Britain’s colonial history, alongside media bias - that converged in mid-1980s as rioting took place on inner-city streets, including the Birmingham district of Handsworth.
Through a range of audio-visual voices, the film’s disruptive approach to form challenged audiences to understand what it meant to live in multicultural Britain. Director John Akomfrah would continue to explore these themes developing this signature layered textual style leading to a recent monumental multi-installation Listening All Night to The Rain which represented the UK at last year’s Venice Biennial.
Please note, this screening will be presented with Audio Description (AD) and Descriptive Subtitles (DS), which were created through ‘Slow emergency siren project, ongoing’ a collaboration co-led by LUX and Sarah Hayden, as part of the research project, Voices in the Gallery.
This award-winning directorial debut from John Akomfrah, a member of the Black Audio Film Collective, was commissioned by Channel 4 in the UK for its Britain: The Lie of the Land series.
With thanks to LUX.
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