A range of short BAME films and documentaries feature at the 15th London Short Film Festival.
The London Short Film Festival (LSFF) has a strong BAME strand this year which is led by director Julie Dash with her groundbreaking Daughters of the Dust (1991) on Sat 13 Jan, 6:30pm at Moth Club, a multigenerational tale of the Black women of Gullah struggling to hold on to their culture.
25 years later, Julie’s work is having a resurgence and has taken its place on the world stage.
Visually spellbinding in its cinematography and never more timely in its subject matter, Dash’s film provides an obvious touchstone to inspire Beyoncé’s vision of Black womanhood in Lemonade.
On Sat 13 Jan, 1:30pm at Rio, a film programme called L.A. Rebellion’ will take place followed by a panel discussion. Coined by Black Film Review’s Clyde Taylor, the collection refers to a critical mass of American filmmakers of African origin or descent brought together at the UCLA Film School in the late ‘60s.
They envisioned an alternative to Hollywood, a new independent cinema sensitive to the real lives of Black communities and interrogating the onscreen representation of Black people in the United States - a revolutionary act for its time, with an enduring legacy. This is an event not to be missed.
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This is followed by Muslim Punk And The New Subculture on Tues 16 Jan, 7pm at Moth Club, a screening of Omar Majeed’s landmark documentary Taqwacore: The Birth Of Punk Islam, plus live performance from The Tuts and panel discussion hosted by filmmaker Hammad Khan.
They will be asking what happened to Taqwacore, and how is class, race, and gender tied in with Muslim resistance to Trump and Brexit?
Furthermore to the BAME highlights, there will be a celebration of Ngozi Onwurah’s body of work.
As the first Black British woman filmmaker to have a feature film released in UK cinemas the festival will celebrate Ngozi’s legacy with a screening of early works and panel discussion in Ngozi Onwurah: Short Films on Wed 17 Jan, 8:30pm at ICA.
Not forgetting Khaneh Siah Ast //The House is Black on Wed 17th Jan, 6:30pm at ICA, an event in association with MUBI, which is a screening of the only known film by one of Iran’s greatest 20th century poets Farough Farrokazad, depicts an isolated community of lepers living in Northwestern Iran, and is soundtracked by a reading from the poet herself.
There will be a reading of her work, translated into English, and The Oberhausen Archive have kindly donated a 35mm print of the film.
Click here to view the full itinerary
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