Project Detail

Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records

Synopsis

"The seeds for the multicultural society we live in now were formed on the dancefloor back in the day" says Don Letts by way of introduction to Nicolas Jack Davies’ documentary about Trojan Records, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. The company was founded by Windrush immigrant Lee Gopthal, against a backdrop of rising racial hatred. 'Rudeboy' charts the label’s evolution from 1960s ska and rock-steady to the chart-topping hits that introduced reggae to a global audience, while also recalling the prejudice that the music’s pioneering artists and producers had to overcome in London. Blending original interviews with evocative archive footage and cinematic reconstructions, the film is a timely celebration of British Jamaican working-class youth culture, style and ingenuity.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 - Create Strand - World premiere
Official Selection IDFA 2018 - International premiere
We Are One: A Global Film Festival 2020 - Selection Curated by BFI London Film Festival

Details

Year
2018
Type of project
Features
Running time
86 min
Director
Nicolas Jack Davies
Producer
Sam Bridger, Vivienne Perry
Executive Producer
Thomas Benski, Marisa Clifford, Kathy Rivkin Daum, Justus Haerder, Brian Levy
Editor
Chris Duveen
Director of Photography
Jonas Mortensen
Sound
Steven Hodge
Supervising Sound Editor, Sound Effects Editor
Jay Price
Re-recording Mixer
John Rogerson

Categories

Production Status

Production Company

UK, Jamaica co-production

Sales Company

Submarine Entertainment

197 Grand Street, Suite 6W
New York
NY 10013
USA

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.

Free Lyric Free Lyric

Director: Cherish 'Chez' Oteka

Year: 2026

Reliving one of the first viral social media moments in rap culture, when a 17 year old female rapper’s life was turned upside down by admitting to having an orgy, FREE LYRIC explores the experience of online call out culture, gender and consent. With the rise of social media as the backdrop, this film explores the journey of a young woman named Niki who was cancelled before being cancelled was a thing, and how she survived a sex scandal. Official Selection Raindance Film Festival 2026 - World premiere

Image from a dramatic reconstruction - Two white skinhead males are staring aggressively at a black man. Beyond the Divide

Director: Imoje Aikhoje

Year: 2025

A Black British activist and a former neo-Nazi sit face to face. In a tense encounter combining direct testimony with dramatic reconstruction, each man is forced to confront what brought him to this point: one radicalised by hate, one shaped by the movement that resists it. Chris Otokito and Nigel Bromage meet for the first time on camera. What unfolds is an unsparing examination of how far-right extremism takes root in Britain and whether dialogue across that divide is possible at all.

Galicia! Galicia!

Director: Anna Maguire, Kyle Greenberg

Year: 2026

What if you went on a holiday and the apocalypse happened? GALICIA! is a found-footage, hybrid-documentary following a couple through home video footage as they visit their friends at a winery in rural Spain and inadvertently capture the end of days. We live in a time where the sense of our impending mutually assured destruction is more real than it’s ever been. GALICIA! Takes the form of a holiday video - a document of a couple before - and after the great cataclysm. The film starts as something that feels unedited - an accidental video diary of an ordinary couple that feels somewhat ghostly as much as it is also pedestrian. As the film evolves and degrades, we are led to question the fragility of humanity, as well as its power to endure.