Some of the most successful workshops emerged from black and ethnic minority filmmakers, among them the trailblazing Black Audio Film Collective. Their Handsworth Songs premiered on Channel 4 in 1986, a year after the riots in Birmingham and London. Incorporating newsreel and archival material, the film’s multi-stranded narrative invites us to consider how mainstream news reduces complex events to problematic stereotypes.
Also screening, Red Skirts on Clydeside was produced by the all-women Sheffield Film Co-op,about the rent strikes led by women in Glasgow in 1915; and Launch, by Newcastle-based Amber Film Workshop, who document the construction of the World Union oil tanker by focussing on heavy machinery, steam and noise: the scale of the endeavour, the solidarity of the workplace, and the community who depend on it.
