Projects in genres: Black

Synopsis

In King Hayle I the camera navigates around a statue of Emperor Haile Sellassie I, acting as a pivotal device to which spectators visually anchor themselves. King Hayle I is an attempt at repairing the umbilical cord between the praxis of art, life and spirituality . . .

Synopsis

Set around youths in contemporary London, where cultures, class and race intermingle and influence each other freely and adopted American street style is the fashion of the day. Three teenagers, Jamie aka Rage, a rebellious rapper, Godwin (G), an introverted pianist, and Thomas (T), a forlorn DJ in search of a cause, find themselves in a slow spiral which begins to erode their bond of friendship after a botched-up attempt at a burglary fuelled by desparation. They are not professional thieves but teenagers in pursuit of a dream, to cut a hip hop record. Their failed act will sound a wake-up call which forces them to re-evaluate the true nature of their friendship, as their denied separate paths creep in.


Was their dream and friendship about making a record or based on a subconscious need of helping each other on their journeys of self-discovery and awakening? Hovering in the background of our protagonists' story are Jamie's friend and mentor Marcus, an elderly Rastafarian with a flawed wisdom and a penchant for marijuana which he cannot afford, and Jamie's single mother Ellen, a young woman struggling to navigate her children through the mine-filled existence of a London council estate where the resident charismatic drug lord Pin rules supreme.

Synopsis

Simple . . . is a 10 min short film about a writer who gets writer's block. Stuck at his computer with a deadline to meet, Wesley is accused by Pamela of being a two timing cheat. He says he is not - she says he is. But the answer is really . . . Simple!

Synopsis

Ruky has just been ordered to leave the UK by the British Home Office. Her world is suddenly torn apart.


Ebenezer her boyfriend could marry her and she would be granted a permanent visa, but he's a deeply religious man who would only marry for love.


Lucky Okoro has just inherited his late father's millions. His close friend and laywer Dele is anxious to help him consolidate his investments, all for just 10% of the total value.


Ruky soon meets Lucky and Dele, and the quest begins to find out what she really wants.

Synopsis

Wilford Rafael Baptiste came from an island to an island and built an island. In his tiny pocket-handkerchief back yard he has become a true master of gardening inventions and has rebuilt his own miniature paradise.

Synopsis

Anita's got attitude and ambition. She plans to be a DJ, dancehall diva, dropping sweet lyrics to wind up the dancefloor. She has a style to make bodies wind... for she is Princess Neeta... 'Mistress of the Mic'... if it wasn't for.... her two kids, if it wasn't for Byron, the kid's father - a singerman himself, who ain't around that much but thinks his babymother should be at home looking after his children. If it wasn't that her mother loves the church so much and disapproves of the dancehall.

Babymother is Anita's story. At first a woman-child, selfish yet naive, street-smart yet vulnerable. A girl as yet unable to face the responsibilities of her children or her life. A girl travelling along the bumpy road to adulthood, through the tough, deeply male world of reggae music. Set against a backdrop of Harlesden's tenement housing, Babymother is a journey into the explosion of colour, passion and style that is the dancehall!

Synopsis

Colour Blind charts the family passions and problems which come to the surface after Bridget McQueen arrives home with a black husband and the growing years of the couple's mixed race daughter, Rose Angela, during the period after the First World War in South Shields. The story, initially told in flashback, then follows the experiences of the adult Rose Angela as she fights to establish her own place in the world.

Synopsis

As pure style, dreadlocks cross social boundaries of race, politics, sex and even economics. But for some their dreads are a statement of being, a way of life - and their only connection with their African origins and identity. Is white appropriation of dreadlocks the theft of black culture or a sign that the African spirit will lead us into the next millennium? The future's dread, the future's bright, the future's black.

Synopsis

In the small hours of the night two shots ring out. Kudjo, a black gangster, lies alone and bleeding on the floor of his deserted nightclub. Through his eyes, we see the climactic events which led up to his shooting. Set in London's clubs, the film tells of a man's battle to escape the hate that he himself set in motion many years before.

Synopsis

On The Edge is a turbulent love story between two tormented characters who desperately try to come to terms with the flaw in their nature. Lorna is a lost and distraught teenage heroin addict, who prostitutes herself to feed her habit. Court is a young man in his early twenties, haunted by the betrayal of his sister, who was sacrificed by his mother to regain her daughter's lost soul.

Synopsis

The Manhattan Brothers wrote and sang 'Township Jazz' music during 1940s and 50s in South Africa. With over 150 hits, they sold millions of records, but their record company, Gallo Records, paid them using petty cash vouchers and hardly anything in royalties. Exiled from South Africa for almost thirty years, Joe Mogotsi now returns to find out if, in the 'new' South Africa, past injustices will be redressed.

Synopsis

By the side of a road somewhere in the North of England, Sammy stands and waits for the arrival of childhood friends Billy and Ruby. It is twenty years since they all first met, when Sammy was taken by social workers to join an isolated children's home on the dramatic Northumbrian coast. As Sammy gets into Billy and Ruby's car it is immediately clear that, despite the fact that Ruby is recently pregnant, there is violent tension between them and that there is a psychological significance to the mysterious journey that Billy is taking them on.


As the journey progresses, we travel back to the past of their childhood when Sammy, shy and vulnerable and unable to read, joins the home. Billy, confident and charismatic, befriends and guides him through the trials of life in the home and protects him from the violent attentions of the resident bully, Bernie. As Sammy grows in confidence, Billy encourages a romantic attachment with his old girlfriend, the flame-haired Ruby. Using his emotional power over his friends, Billy establishes a ménage a trois that sets them apart from other children in the home. This power is threatened when, in a dramatic incident, Billy tries to defend Sammy from Bernie and gets savagely beaten. The resulting act of revenge is one which will inextricably bind the three friends through the intervening years until the pressure of the past and present combine to force an inevitable resolution.