Thursday 24 November 2022 (5:30-9:00pm) & Friday 25 November 2022 (5:30-9:00pm)
Join us for The Global Politics of Black Lives International Film Festival at De Montfort University (DMU) featuring the work of Esther Figueroa (Jamaica), Chris Ivey (Pittsburgh), Alberta Whittle (Barbados/UK) and Jennifer Ere-Mendie (Nigeria/UK).
The Global Politics of Black Lives Film Festival aims to generate public conversations about the ways these films depict and respond differently to how Black lives continue to be shaped by the politics of global capitalism, labour, the degradation of the natural and social environments, the global politics of blackness, race and racism, representations of sexuality, and the cumulative effects of power, control and exploitation. Join us to see how these artists tell their stories with rage and humour, with acute attention to healing, love, care and social justice in a time of climate, economic and political catastrophe.
The film festival takes place over two days and will include student workshops and conclude with a panel discussion between the filmmakers.
Thursday 24 November:
Esther Figueroa
FLY ME TO THE MOON (2019), is a feature documentary by Jamaican independent filmmaker Esther Figueroa, that takes us on a journey into the unexpected ways we are all connected on Planet Earth, by following aluminium – the metal of modernity – around the world and into space. We travel for over one hundred years, visiting places as far flung as the Moon, Jamaica, India, Suriname, Canada, Cuba, Japan, Hungary, Iceland, Australia, Vietnam, the United States of America, encountering along the way human triumphs, technological innovations, multiple wars, societal upheavals, environmental devastation. And in the urgent here and now of the climate crisis, the film challenges us to think about the consequences of our consumption, to reimagine the ways in which we live, and to change our material culture and political economy that is destroying the planet we all depend on. (115 mins).
Alberta Whittle & Grand Union
Congregation (Creating Dangerously 2022) A new film commission by Alberta Whittle presents conversations, performances and interviews with and by Black women, non-binary and trans folks whilst also responding to archival research. Community activist Eunice McGhie-Belgrave, the founder of the community group Shades of Black (started in 1989 to unite a fractured community in Birmingham in the wake of the 1980s race riots), will feature in the film and share her inspiring experiences and the effectiveness of grassroots community building, direct community action and positive healing gardening practices, which addresses the wider issues of poverty in the city.
With Birmingham being the second most culturally diverse city in the UK, we see a need, now more than ever, for art to anchor itself in sustenance, healing, witness, and critique. Alberta’s film commission will exist as an inquiry into cultural amnesia as it relates to conditions of freedom under the hostile environment.
This film strives to re-member the identities erased and silenced through both deliberate and unconscious collective cultural amnesia, platforming the lives that were left to the ruins by acts of hostility, such as the infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech given by Enoch Powell at the Conservative Political Centre in Birmingham. We recognise that approaches to defeating inequality cannot work if we refuse to trace the historical timeline of inequality that culminates in our present-day society (40 mins).
Friday 25 November:
Chris Ivey
Introducing Brian Broome (2021) is a documentary by filmmaker Chris Ivey featuring Brian Broome, winner of the 2021 Kirkus Prize for nonfiction for Punch Me Up to the Gods. The film records intimate and raw conversations with fellow Black Pittsburgh writers. At times heartfelt, haunting, and often hilarious, Introducing Brian Broome brings together artistic writing greats all living in the same town, mostly all friends. It examines what it means to be a Black writer living in the rust belt today. What it means to suddenly be on the literary map, a map for which you’ve drawn the boundaries. (100 mins).
Amapamoere Jennifer Ere-Mendie
A call for Data Protection Law in Nigeria: This documentary is an eleven-minute short film of my PhD research that depicts repression of Nigerian journalists and human rights activists from the state as a result of a lack of legal laws to protect freedom of speech in Nigeria. The film begins with the producer explaining the politics surrounding the injustice and went on to reveal examples of this repression and resistance from human rights activists and civil society. The film ends by calling for a need of clearly defined data protection laws in Nigeria to protect freedom of speech (11 mins).
The Global Politics of Black Lives International Film Festival is a collaboration between the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre and the Media Discourse Centre at DMU.
Please note this event is taking place over 24 and 25 November. Should you wish to see all the films in this festival please select the ticket type 'Both days' or amend your booking to reflect this.
This event is open to all. Bookings will close 1 hour prior to the start of the event, and registrants will receive a link to join the online event 24hrs before the event, via their provided email address.
Please contact the DMU Events Office on eventsoffice@dmu.ac.uk if you have any questions.