Handsworth Songs - English subtitled
A powerful documentary about the 1985 riots in Handsworth and London, and the complex story of Black communities in Britain.
October 1985: riots erupt in cities like Birmingham and London. What followed was violence, looting, and tragic losses – including Joy Gardner, a Black woman, and Keith Blakelock, a white police officer – leaving a society torn apart by racial tensions. Handsworth Songs goes beyond the one-sided media coverage that demonised the protesters and reduced them to a single stereotype. The film places these events in a wider context of race, identity, and the sense of belonging in Britain.
John Akomfrah weaves together archive footage, interviews, self-shot material, and an expressive sound collage into a fragmentary montage that invites viewers to make their own connections. Handsworth Songs is regarded as a landmark in British auteur cinema and remains influential in terms of representation and social justice. Akomfrah, one of the founders of the Black Audio Film Collective, worked with other Black filmmakers to expose social inequality in Britain and reflect the unrest of the 1980s