Bastard Allegories: Black British Independent Cinema

This is a study of the founding terms of Black British independent cinema from the 1980s. Looking closely at the work of filmmaker John Akomfrah, and cultural theorists such as Stuart Hall, this essay examines the complex imbrication of form and theory in that cinema, paying particular attention to Hall’s emphasis on the motif of “articulation” and how, for Akomfrah, the formal qualities of Black British independent cinema related—allegorically, dialectically, symptomatically—to Hall’s theory of the conjuncture. Drawing on four structural motifs—method, archive, genre, and filiation—I also look at works by Isaac Julien, Kobena Mercer, and Frantz Fanon.