Project Detail

Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande

Synopsis

They are the unsung heroes of hip hop, disco and a host of other genres, whose message of peace, love and funk sailed beyond Britain's shores and helped shape music for five decades. Long after they stopped playing, the music played on, so they returned to play some more.
In the racially turbulent UK of the early 70s, a group of black musicians came together in South London with a common love of rhythms and a message of peace. Cymande – with the dove as their symbol – combined jazz, funk, soul and Caribbean grooves to form a unique sound. Despite success in the USA they faced indifference in their native Britain, becoming disillusioned and disbanding. But the music lived on, as new generations of artists imbibed and reworked their pioneering sounds in fresh ways. From Soul II Soul to De La Soul, MC Solaar to The Fugees, the Dove had spread Cymande's message far and wide, prompting their return after forty years. This is their story.
Official Selection SXSW Film Festival 2022 - World premiere

Details

Year
2022
Type of project
Features
Running time
89 min
Director
Tim Mackenzie-Smith
Producer
Tim Mackenzie-Smith, Matt Wyllie
Executive Producer
John Battsek, Daniel Gordon
Editor
Matt Wyllie
Director of Photography
David Corfield
Archive Producer
Beatrice Read
Music Supervisor
Gary Welch

Categories

Production Status

Production Company

Crawshay Films in association with Ventureland and Very Much So

Crawshay Films

Tim Mackenzie-Smith

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

Pebble Spiral created by Jim Ede for Kettle's Yard in 1957 a way of living : kettle's yard

Director: Chris Vile

Year: 2026

Henry Moore beside a pebble. Barbara Hepworth next to broken china. No labels. No velvet ropes. No explanation. Art stripped of its usual deference and curatorial esperanto. Art revealing its true power. Art for all. ‘You want to look at how it is and marvel at the ordinariness of it and the extraordinariness of it all’ (Lubaina Himid) Kettle’s Yard is a small, humble home. Created by a couple, Jim & Helen Ede, who, with little money, became supporters and friends of many of the most important artists of the 20th Century. Jim survived the trenches of the First World War but despaired of a society that could allow such horrors. His is a quiet, very British, revolution that has a powerful resonance today. Antony Gormley, Edmund de Waal, Cornelia Parker, Ai Weiwei and others, passionately explain why this humble place is so important to them and why Jim’s radical ideas are vital for us today.

fully mature, reconstructed reef,  Salisi' Besar Reef, Indonesia Reef Builders

Director: Stephen Shearman

Year: 2025

For the last eight years, off a remote island in Indonesia, a remarkable experiment has been carried out: a once desolate underwater rubble-field of broken and dead coral has been carefully replanted and regrown back to full health. In 2025, the reef on Selasi Besar is the largest rebuilt reef on earth. It is an unprecedented success. Selasi Besar sends a message of hope to the world. But can the success in Indonesia be replicated and rolled out on a global scale? For this experiment to make a difference it has to work everywhere. Official Selection, SXSW 2025 Official Selection, Quad Cities Environmental Film Series 2026 [WINNER Special Jury Award for Environmental Action] Official Selection, Innsbruck Nature Film Festival 2026 Official Selection, One Earth Film Festival 2027

Contact sheet showing a photographer with a large format camera Edge is Everything

Director: Marisa Privitera Murdoch

Year: 2026

Edge is Everything is a love letter to photography and to the art of truly seeing. For over 30 years, Thomas Joshua Cooper has photographed the furthest edges of land with a 19th century camera. His work bears witness to landscapes transformed by climate change while recovering forgotten histories of migration, exploration and departure. Cooper draws on his Native American heritage and an extraordinary archive of audio interviews he recorded in the 1970s with photography’s most influential figures, including Ansel Adams, Man Ray, Imogen Cunningham and Paul Strand. These previously unheard tapes create a rare intergenerational conversation about photography and artistic practice. The film also examines the cost of an uncompromising creative life. His wife and adult daughter reveal the impact of his prolonged absences and challenge the mythology of the solitary artist. At a time defined by speed, distraction and instant images, Edge is Everything asks what might happen if we slowed down long enough to fully observe. This question has guided Cooper since childhood, when he was taught by his Native American elders: “Each of us has an eye that sees and a seeing eye. When you learn which is which, you will have begun to become human.”