John Akomfrah – Mimesis: African Soldier

Mimesis: African Soldier by John Akomfrah uncovers the undiscussed story of the Commonwealth soldiers who volunteered to fight in World War I: the war of their colonial masters.

Akomfrah blends archive imagery of African and Asian soldiers at work, digging trenches and fetching and carrying with original, newly filmed footage imagining the men as they leave their partners behind.

With a soundtrack that mixes African and Indian song with new compositions, John Akomfrah paints a vivid cinematic portrait of a forgotten, or overlooked history.

“The most important thing for me, the takeaway, is that African soldiers fought in this war, that they played a variety of roles in the war as foot soldiers, as carriers. Every facet, every avenue, every job in the war, if you look long enough, you will see someone of either Asian or African origin/heritage in that role.” – John Akomfrah

The film is showing at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, 1 October 2022—8 January 2023.

Small Axe (2020) Steve McQueen

Watch Steve McQueen’s first of a series of Films ‘Small Axe’ now showing on BBC iPlayer. Superb, powerful and timely film, the first film is ‘Mangrove’.

’Fifty years ago, on 9 August 1970, 150 protestors marched against police harassment in Notting Hill. This is the true story of the Mangrove 9, a group of Black activists who were arrested for leading the protest and who changed British history by taking a stand against racial discrimination.’

The second film ‘Lovers Rock’ tells a fictional story of young love at a blues party in 1980. The film is an ode to the romantic reggae genre called lovers rock, and to the black youth who found freedom and love in its sound at London house parties, at a time when they were unwelcome in white nightclubs.

The third film 'Red, White and Blue' starring John Boyega airs Sunday 29th November at 9pm.

There’s more about Steve McQueen including his other films and exhibitions on this Poool page
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Small Axe Q&A - BFI London Film Festival
Steve McQueen talks to BFI London Film Festival programmer Tega Okiti about Mangrove and Lovers Rock

More Q&A and talks about Small Axe from New York Film Festival

New York Film Festival hosted this talk, below, about The Making of Small Axe, ‘In this lively conversation with NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim , McQueen and his collaborators—including co-writers Courttia Newland and Alastair Siddons, cinematographer Shabier Kirchner, and actors Shaun Parkes and Letitia Wright—dug into the making of this sprawling project and the artistic and political ambitions that have shaped it.’

With his bold and multifaceted Small Axe anthology, Steve McQueen has made the films of the moment. The three parts screened in the NYFF58 Main Slate-Lovers ...

At around 17m 10s in talk above Steve McQueen talks about the ‘Silly Games’ acapella sequence in Lovers Rock.

Black Sheep - (Oscars 2019 Short Documentary Nominee) - Directed by Ed Perkins

Everything changed for Cornelius Walker on 27 November 2000 when Damilola Taylor was killed. Damilola was 11, the same age as Cornelius. He lived five minutes away. He had the same skin colour. Cornelius’s mother, scared for her son’s safety, moved their family out of London. Cornelius suddenly found himself living on a white estate run by racists. But rather than fight them, Cornelius decided to become more like the people who hated him. They became his family and kept him safe. And in return, Cornelius became submerged in a culture of violence and hatred. But as the violence and racism against other black people continued, Cornelius struggled to marry his real identity with the one he had acquired.

Also see, other documentary films on Guardian Documentary including":

After Windrush Betrayl - Paulette Wilson

GIRLHOOD (BANDE DE FILLES) Directed by CÉLINE SCIAMMA. (2014) France

‘One of the best coming-of-age films of our times, Céline Sciamma’s Girlhood follows a journey of self-discovery through the power of female friendship. By focusing on the lives of young Black women in Paris’ banlieue, Sciamma provides a kind of on-screen representation still too absent in cinema.’ MUBI

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 - GÖRAN OLSSON (2011)

‘From 1967 to 1975, fueled by curiosity and naïveté, Swedish journalists traversed the ocean to film the black power movement in America. The Black Power Mixtape mobilizes a mosaic of images, music, and narration to chronicle the movement’s evolution.’ - MUBI

Pressure (1976) - Horace Ove

Excerpt from Horace Ové's film Pressure available on nice DVD set from the BFI.

‘As UK Black Lives Matter protests roar, and the foulness of the Windrush scandal festers, it is a crucial time to dive into black British history. “Historic” certainly describes the first ever black British feature film: Horace Ové’s Pressure, an absorbing 1976 drama about the everyday struggles of a London-born son (Herbert Norville) of Trinidadian parents.’ - Ashley Clark, Guardian

I am not your Negro (2016) - Raoul Peck

Narrated entirely in the words of James Baldwin, through both personal appearances and the text of his final unfinished book project, this film touches on the lives and assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr and Medgar Evers. The film brings powerful clarity to how the images and reality of black lives in America today are fabricated and enforced. 

Handsworth Songs - John Akomfrah (1986)

Black Audio Film Collective, John Akomfrah, Handsworth Songs, 1986, single channel 16mm colour film transferred to video, sound, 58 minutes 33 seconds. © Smoking Dogs Films. Courtesy Lisson Gallery

‘A film essay on race and civil disorder in 1980s Britain and the inner city riots of 1985, Handsworth Songs takes as its point of departure the civil disturbances of September and October 1985 in the Birmingham district of Handsworth and in the urban centres of London. 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. Handsworth Songs won Britain’s most prestigious award for Documentaries, the British Film Institute Grierson Award Best Documentary in 1986.’

The film features photography by Vanley Burke and was shot on his bolex camera as discussed in recent guest seminar with us.

The film is a Black Audio Film Collective production. Artists, filmmakers and writers associated with the group include John Akomfrah, Reece Auguiste, Edward George Lina Gopaul, Avril Johnson, David Lawson, Trevor Mathison .

John Akomfrah talks about his practice as a filmmaker, how he navigates between the gallery and cinema, what compelled him to make his 2015 work Vertigo Sea,...

Also see:

Question Bridge

Question Bridge is an innovative transmedia project that facilitates a dialogue between Black men from diverse and contending backgrounds and creates a platform for them to represent and redefine Black male identity in America.

Chris Johnson originated the Question Bridge concept with a 1996 video installation he created for the Museum of Photographic Arts and the Malcolm X library in San Diego, California