Projects in genres: Black

Synopsis

This film takes you into different Kenyan communities and explores the tradition of circumcision and also love, marriage, families, rebellion and change. We discover girls struggling with their culture and their loyalty to their parents. Will they be strong enough to break with tradition? And if they do, will they be accepted back into their communities, or will they become outcasts? Fardhosa, a woman doctor, takes us into the Somali community where she attempts to open people's minds to try safer and more humane medical practices. Simalo, a young Masai girl, goes home to confront her mother for having married her off to an old man against her will. And finally, sixteen young girls challenge their parents and take the painful decision to take them to court to stop them circumcising them. This has historic implications for their whole culture. The film shows ancient traditions beginning to be questioned by a new generation that doesn't want to suffer as their mothers have done.

Synopsis

A powerful short film about a young black man who believes he is Muhammed Ali. Based on a ten month study carried out by the film's director Rodreguez King-Dorset for the Department of Health, to explore the issues relating to schizophrenia within black African Caribbean populations living in rural England.

Synopsis

Eleven year old David Wiseman is mad about cricket but no good at it. He has all the kit but none of the skill, and he's a laughing stock at school. So when a Jamaican family move in next door and build a cricket net in the back garden, David is in seventh heaven.

But this is 1960s England, and when the neighbours start to make life difficult for the new arrivals, David's Jewish family is caught in the middle, and he has to choose between fitting in and standing up for the new friends who have turned his world upside down.

Synopsis

Between 1969 and 1999 over 1000 died in police custody in Britain. In this controversial documentary four women fight to find out how their own loved ones died. Each family is met with a wall of official silence and the film documents how they unite and challenge this together. The documentary uses powerful exclusive footage filmed over a five year period and witnesses the families' pain and anger at the killings.

Synopsis

Having left Brixton and become a successful business woman, Tiki returns to catch up on her old flame, Soweto. He appears to have wasted his life away, living in a squat. The two people and cultures collide but has Tiki got it all figured out?

Synopsis

An urban comedy which features drug barons, pom dealers and aspiring DJs - and an unfortunate case of canine mistaken identity.

Synopsis

Goldie, the Godfather of Drum and Bass, takes us on a roller coaster ride through his frenetic life. A journey that takes us from Wolverhampton to Tokyo, Miami to Hong Kong; through his years in council care and his life as a musician and international pop star. Along the way we meet his family, his collaborators and his celebrated friends, David Bowie and Noel Gallagher.

Synopsis

A high-octane action thriller set in the post-apartheid South African ghetto.

Through themes of racial identification and reflections on Hollywood-style violence, Hijack Stories mixes social commentary and humour while looking at the most painful and violent aspects of South African society.

Sox Moraka (Tony Kgoroge) is a talented actor and part of the rising black middle class in Johannesburg. He fled poverty in Soweto to become a well-known television personality for South Africa's new "Rainbow Nation". Sox acts and lives the part, dating his blond co-star and living in a penthouse flat in the white suburbs. While hosting music video shows, the ambitious thespian dreams of becoming an action hero - the African Wesley Snipes. The possibility of landing a role as popular TV gangster Bra Biza sends Sox back to the ghetto to rediscover his roots. Bumbling along in an unfamiliar, violent world, he meets the street-wise Grace, who introduces him to notorious gangster and old school friend Zama Zama or the General as he is endearingly tagged by his posse. The posse consists of Fly, the kamikaze getaway driver, and Joe, a disillusioned activist whose prophetic asides about South Africa's current state provide a constant morality check. They decide that Sox is truly in need of 're-education' and so begins his crash course in the seductive, yet deadly, finer points of gangster life. One terrifying night, Sox learns that gangster life isn't all game play and, as a result, each of the characters' lives will change forever.

Synopsis

The 1981 Toxteth riot was the most violent civil disturbance in Britain this century. Over three days more than £11 million worth of property damaged, 1,000 police injured, 500 people arrested. Citizens of the deprived area reacted angrily to high unemployment and years of racial harassment from the police.

Hearing from the rioters, community leaders, victims, local and national government members, this unique documentary recalls how this situation escalated out of control. Ordinary people caught up in the riots gave their views and accounts as to the reasons for, and the inadequacy of the authorities' response to, the days of disorder and destruction.

Synopsis

The story deals with the conflict and cross-cultural tension experience between a British educated African man and his black American wife in an African setting.

The film revolves around Emma, a black American who grows up in America's deep south. Her dream is to settle in Africa where, she believes, people will not view her with suspicion, but accept her as an integral part of the human race.

Kofi Boateng, the husband, is born of African parents having lived in London since the age of sixteen. He is an architect with a multi-national firm. He refuses to go to Africa because he believes the continent is not developed enough to appreciate his talent.

By sheer coincidence these two characters meet in a nightclub in London. For Emma it is a dream come true, because of the possibility that one day they could settle in Africa. Whilst Kofi also sees this union as a way of eventually living in America.

The story unfolds, ten years into the marriage in London.

Synopsis

A highly stylised intimate portrait of the fantastic life of Louis Armstrong. The film charts the story of the innovator, the first great jazz soloist, bandleader, pop star, actor and American cultural ambassador, Louis Armstrong.

Narrated by Danny Glover, The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong is a sensitive insight into the life of the man behind the trumpet; an epic story that spans 70 years from his childhood days on the streets of New Orleans to the glamorous Hollywood films like High Society and Hello Dolly, punctuated by timeless hits like What a Wonderful World and When You're Smiling.

Synopsis

London 1961. Alex, a jazz musician, and Faith, a singer, share an uneasy life together. The relationship 'on the rocks' Faith is willing to try to win back Alex by any means. Alas her attempts at making Alex jealous by leaving the club with a stranger backfire. Assuming that Faith has found a new beau Alex leaves their flat not knowing that Faith has been waiting for him.