Handsworth Songs (1986)
Genre : Documentary
Runtime : 1H 1M
Director : John Akomfrah
Synopsis
The Black Audio Film Collective’s acclaimed essay film, 'Handsworth Songs', examines the 1985 race riots in Handsworth and London. Interweaving archival photographs, newsreel clips, and home movie footage, the film is both an exploration of documentary aesthetics and a broad meditation social and cultural oppression through Britain’s intertwined narratives of racism and economic decline.
Part documentary, part personal essay, this experimental film combines archive imagery with the striking wintry landscapes of Alaska to tell the story of immigrant experience coming into the UK from 1960 onwards.
Antonio, a taxi driver, his wife, and two chidren arrive one fine afternoon at a solitary beach, looking for sea-shells. However, they will find more than expected: namely, Ombasi and Yambo, two illegal African immigrants, apparently thrown back to the ocean from where they came, in search of a better life in Spain. The sun sets, and the evening, night and morning which follow see other bizarre characters entering the scene, before the Africans' and the other characters' fates are finally decided.
Ensemble film revolving around characters living in Forest Gate, London. Over the course of a few days, six inter-linking stories explore issues of drug use, prostitution and urban poverty.
Adaptation of the satirical poem by Samuil Marshak, ridiculed racism. Mister Twister with his family went to the USSR on the boat, previously agreed with the Cook Travel Company to any boat or in the hotel was not "blacks, Malays and other riff-raff." Arriving in Leningrad, Twister and his family stayed at the hotel "Engleterre", and everything went smoothly until they saw on one of the floors the guest from Africa.
An Old South plantation owner lusts after his female slaves.
16-year old Axel and his clique are rioting in a residential home. There he meets the 80-year old Gustav who gains interest in the young boy, as he reminds him of his lost love.
On election night we meet Peter, an idealistic young man, who suddenly discovers he has forgotten to vote. On his way to the polls he encounters a variety of taxi drivers, all racist in their way and Peter has to decide whether to stand up for his convictions or getting to the polls on time. The film won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.
Archaeologists in Egypt find one of their crew has been turned into a blood sucking mummy after they have unleashed a three thousand year curse.
Two UCLA coeds have engine trouble in small Southern town. When they spurn the local sheriff's advances he arranges for them to be taken to the women's prison on trivial charges (the judge is a cousin), where they must endure atrocities at the hands of the administrators of the prison and the prison guards.
A British-born younger son of an immigrant family from Trinidad finds himself adrift between two cultures.
Set in Hong Kong in the 1980s, the film follows a fisherman’s son who rises to become a powerful tai pan.
Germany, right after the re-unification. The people are out of control, blind hatred towards immigrants is common sense. In this time, a social-worker, with the mission to bring a Polish family to their destination (an immigration camp in a little provincial town called Rassau), gets kidnapped just as the family. Chief inspector Koern and his girl-friend start to investigate in this matter in Rassau, exploring a world of obsessive sex, mislead lust and an over-whelming irrational love to the German nation, infiltrating anyone's mind. Rascism doesn't start with shaved hair and boots but rather in the middle of society itself...
How can a smart middle class girl suddenly turn into a devoted right wing debater? That's what happens with Catherine when she meets the charismatic leaders of the neo-nazi organization NIM. Catherine, a first-year university student who feels alienated from the liberal campus, joins a hate group through the Internet and becomes their voice, only to gradually question their beliefs even as she becomes more deeply involved.
When a prominent abortion clinic owner goes missing along with a string of other black community leaders, her singing daughter and her fellow female biker gang members investigate.
Diversity trainer Lee Mun Wah assembles a diverse group of eight American men to talk about their experience of race relations in the United States. The exchange is sometimes dramatic as they lay bare the pain that racism in the US has caused them.
Moving to Brighton in an attempt to fulfill her dreams of becoming a musician, Rose befriends an amiable homeless man and a charming young bartender.
Nine people are stuck in an elevator. One of them has a ticking bomb that can't be defused. The other eight will do anything to survive. There is no escape and no promise of rescue. As the tension in the elevator mounts the unthinkable soon becomes the only reasonable solution.
In his groundbreaking new documentary; A Conversation About Race, filmmaker Craig Bodeker redefines the conventional wisdom on Race and Racism. A diverse group of Colorado residents are challenged for their thoughts on: Why do white students score better than black students on standardized tests? Why is the NBA nearly 90% black? Have you ever been “racist? Are whites better at anything than blacks? Do blacks commit more crimes than whites? Can you name a public figure who is “racist”? Can you give an example of the racism you see in your daily life? How do you feel about immigration from Mexico?
On Christmas Eve 1770, a young African warrior, who three years prior had been captured and sold into slavery in America, leads a desperate group of runaway slaves as they attempt to reach freedom in the North.
A trio of beautiful private-duty nurses that practice more than the medical arts must confront underground drug traffickers, racism and murder in their local hospital.