PART OF VILLAGE SCREEN FILM WEEK

Closing off Brixton Village’s film festival will see T A P E’s Angela Monkie interview the prolific British-Nigerian filmmaker, Ngozi Onwurah. The event follows a much-anticipated retrospective of the artists’ short films, offering visitors the opportunity to hear Onwurah talk through her works - integral to the British film canon. Filled with complex and insightful narratives that put the Black British experience at the forefront, Onwurah became the first Black British female director to have a film theatrically released in the UK with her feature debut Welcome II the Terrordome (1995) and Shoot The Messenger starring David Oyelowo (2006) was recently re-released on Blu-Ray. 

Films:

COFFEE COLOURED CHILDREN 

16 min. | UK | 1988 

Suffering, a young girl and her brother attempt to scour their skin white.  

Using an experimental monologue, a narrator deftly articulates the internalized effects of racism on British children, of mixed racial heritage. 

THE BODY BEAUTIFUL 

23 min. | UK | 1990 

A mother and daughter undergo a radical journey of body and mind which sees the mother undergo a mastectomy as the daughter embarks on a modeling career.    

WHITE MEN ARE CRACKING UP 

20min. | UK | 1994 

In this genre-bending murder mystery, the myth of the black feminine mystique is dissected through the enigmatic figure of Masie Blue.  

HANG TIME 

26 min. | UK | 2001 

SYNOPSIS 

In a Nigerian shantytown, a young, poor, but talented basketball player’s desperate attempt to find shoes that will impress an American basketball scout, ends in tragedy. 

FLIGHT OF THE SWAN 

11 min. | UK | 1992  

A young black ballerina draws on the power of her Nigerian heritage to fight prejudice and dance in Swan Lake.