As part of BFI Southbank’s Woman With a Movie Camera we present a snapshot of Black girlhood through a mixture of archive and contemporary short films. Find joy in these adventures, the refreshing variety of perspectives they offer and in storytelling that simply lets Black girls be girls.
Content warning: Please note that viewers may find Picking Tribes upsetting as it includes historical racist language and a brief depiction of lynching in the US. The curators of the programme T A P E Collective carefully considered the inclusion of the film and felt that as it was directed by a Black woman (as are all the films featured in the programme), they wanted to include it to truthfully represent the sentiments, worries and politics of the times.
ESSEX GIRLS dir. Yero Timi-Biu, UK, 2023, 15 min.
Flipping the 'Essex Girl' trope, this coming-of-age film explores Black British girlhood and magical female friendships in 2009 Essex.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Short Film Competition
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2024
PICKING TRIBES dir. S. Pearl Sharp, USA, 1984, 7 min
“In a heartfelt, and often hilarious, attempt to be more than ‘ordinary,’ a girl growing up in the 1940s tries to choose between her African-American and Native-American heritages. It is only when her beloved grandfather dies that she is able to reconcile the power of both her heritages and realizes her own uniqueness." -Moving Pictures Bulletin. Originally released in 1984, this lyrical visual poem featuring Barbara-O urges black women to both discover and invent their own identities. The 2009 remix includes updated audio with vocals by Sharp and Dwight Trible.
MUNA dir. Warda Mohamed, UK, 2023, 19 min.
A film about teenage dreams, dislocated grief and unexpected connection, following a British-Somali teen navigating a confusing mourning period for a family member she never met.
Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2024 - Generation 14plus - International premiere
HOME AWAY FROM HOME dir. Maureen Blackwood, UK, 1993, 11 min.
Sankofa Film Collective's Maureen Blackwood renders the often unspoken experience of loneliness and sacrifice within migration stories. To ease her homesickness Miriam recreates an aspect of home in her suburban British garden. Cultural memory exerts a healing power, combatting cultural appropriation, hostility towards migrants and the rift between Miriam and her Nigerian-British children.
FLIGHT OF THE SWAN, dir. Ngozi Onwurah, UK, 1992, 11 min.
A young girl leaves her Nigerian village to attend a ballet school in England. Fascinated by Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, she dreams of performing as lead ballerina Princess Odette, but the girls in her close-minded ballet school mock her ideas of a 'black swan'.