01
Handsworth Songs
Why this pick
A similarly radical essay-film assemblage, layering archive material, music and poetic narration to examine Britain’s Black communities through memory, unrest and contested history.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE1991 1h 20m GBR
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Who Needs a Heart
DramaDocumentary
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
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01
02
The Nine Muses
Why this pick
Akomfrah again turns Black British experience into a richly associative audiovisual meditation, using found footage, literary structure and an evocative soundscape rather than conventional biography.
03
The Stuart Hall Project
Why this pick
Its portrait of the cultural theorist unfolds through archival images and an exquisitely curated musical fabric, sharing the elliptical, politically alert documentary language of Who Needs a Heart.
04
Looking for Langston
Why this pick
This sensuous, archival-inflected meditation on Black queer artistic history shares the experimental montage, jazz-inflected atmosphere and resistance to straightforward historical reconstruction.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
The tumultuous life of the controversial 1960s black revolutionary (and convicted murderer) Michael X is illustrated by a kaleidoscopic melding of sound and images. The radically discordant free jazz soundtrack provides a surreal counterpoint to the mix of newsreel and staged footage in this exhilarating experiment in documentary storytelling.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Caroline Burghard
Faith
Treva Etienne
Sidney
Ruth Gemmell
Abigail
Caroline Lee-Johnson
Naomi
Q
Louis
Cassie McFarlane
Millie
Ian Reddington
Jack
Mo Sesay
Simmi