A Curator's Conundrum: Programming "Black Film" in 1980s-1990s Britain

Background

Programming Black British film and video in the 1980s and 1990s, a time that some regard as its most creative and most prolific, was an experience that offered historical, cultural, and economic challenges. The independent spirit of film in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s is part of that environment, and the drive for independent cinema in Britain was at its peak in the 1980s. Institutional support was evident, and infrastructures for the practical existence of it were developing. It was a time when collaborative working in the form of film workshops received wide support from television, the industry unions, and local government. It was a time when Channel 4 television took a proactive role in the development of independent cinema. The channel collaborated with "independent distributors" to bring independent films to the screen; commissioning editors for independent film sought to support the development on the big screen by commissioning films that could also have a life on the small screen. The vision was expansive. It embraced notions of "Third Cinema," cinemas of resistance, cinemas that existed in spite of social and economic or political pressure. They all seemed to have a common and shared position: not only to tell stories of experiences excluded from the agendas of Hollywood/Bollywood and European cinema, but also to find ways of subverting the conventions of filmmaking to serve their own specific project in storytelling.

There was a vision that an alternative economy for independent film and video could be viable, free of the requirements of commercial mass consumption, and embrace art and innovation born of integrity, honest experiences, and untold stories.

This, in short, was the agenda that was prevalent in the United Kingdom and the environment into which the black film workshops and the independent production companies sought to carve out their role and make their mark. Following the 1970s, engagement with black political identity was prevalent, and the expression of that identity and the black experience was taking place in all forms and across all professions. Horace Ové's early feature Pressure and Menelik Shabazz's Burning an Illusion had commanded attention both from the liberal "independent" ethos and from young black people with visions of asserting black identity and experience. The independent spirit went hand in hand with a cooperative and collaborative style of working. Sankofa, Black Audio Film Collective, Ceddo, Star, and Retake were the workshops (centers of production, training, and self-distribution) that young black film talent formed in a spirit of cooperation alongside the black independent production companies such as Kuumba Productions and, later on, Non-Aligned Productions, Umbi Productions, and others.

The purpose of such filmmaking has always been to reach as many people as one can in the most effective ways (the Association of Black Film and Video Workshops brochure states, "The Black workshops' common aim is to intervene in the area of cultural representation").

Many first productions distilled personal stories, feelings, experiences. They experimented with new aesthetic presentations that could capture hitherto unseen histories and feelings. Attention continued to be paid to the quality, creativity, and professionalism that are often prerequisites for commercial success, but it simply meant that cultural identification became, for the first time, a distinguishing factor and an expedient programming tool.