Handsworth Songs
John Akomfrah, GB 1986Screenplay, Editing: John Akomfrah; Cinematography: Sebastian Shah; Music: Trevor Mathison. DCP (from 16mm), 59 min. English
John Akomfrah's poetic ruminations on race, identity and post-colonialism over the past three decades have transformed him into one of UK's leading contemporary filmmakers and installation artists. His first film Handsworth Songs (1986) is a profound mediation on race and civil disorder in 1980s Britain. In October 1985, a spate of violent events in the Birmingham district of Handsworth and in urban centres of London resulted in the death of an elderly black woman, Joy Gardner and a white policeman, Keith Blakelock. Taking these occurrences as its point of departure, and the inability of the British media to go beyond demonizing or rationalizing the rioters and their motives, the film attempts to break the anxiety-driven loop of morbid responses regarding the presence of Blacks in Britain. Running throughout the film is the idea that the riots were the outcome of a protracted suppression by British society of Black presence. The film portrays civil disorder as an opening onto a secret history of dissatisfaction that is connected to the national drama of industrial decline. The 'Songs' in the title do not reference musicality but instead invoke the idea of documentary as a poetic montage of associations similar to the British documentary cinema of John Grierson and Humphrey Jennings. Handsworth Songs won Britain's most prestigious award for Documentaries the British Film Institute Grierson Award Best Documentary in 1986. (A.S.)
Introduced by Anupma Shanker on November 10, 2024
