Booking fees
£1.50 booking fee per online/phone transaction.
No fee when tickets are booked in person.
Booking fees are per transaction and not per ticket. If your booking contains several events the highest booking fee will apply. The booking fee may be reduced on certain events. Members do not pay booking fees.
Programme
Films by Ayo Akingbade:
Dear Babylon
HD video, colour, sound, 21 min
The future of social housing is threatened by the AC30 Housing Bill. Set in London’s East End, a trio of art students are eager to raise awareness about their neighbourhood, especially the lives of tenants and people who work on the estate.
So They Say
Super 16mm transferred to HD file, colour, sound, 11 min
Set in 1985 and the present day, the film explores and reflects on the often forgotten histories of the Afro-Caribbean and South Asian community struggle in East London. The legacy of community and activist group, Newham Monitoring Project is spotlighted.
Fire in my Belly
HD video, colour, sound, 11 min
A necessary youthful take echoing on questions of home, community and crisis in the metropolitan city of London.
Films by Rhea Storr:
Junkanoo Talk
2017, UK, Digital and Super 16mm converted to digital with sound, 12min, (excerpt)
Junkanoo Talk investigates the language of celebration through carnival. It employs the techniques of costume crafting particular to Junkanoo- a carnival of the Bahamas. The sound is produced on the body and takes the rhythms of Rake 'n' Scrape music, also particular to the Bahamas. James Baldwin is quoted, speaking of the complexities of being an African American living in France, along with the Bahamian Tourism Minister who speaks of appropriation and the body as a voice. Authored by an artist of mixed race, Junkanoo Talk questions the slippages which occur when a language performs across cultures, asking what can be translated and where resistances occur.
A Protest, A Celebration, A Mixed Message
2018, UK, Super 16mm converted to digital with sound, 12min, (excerpt)
Celebration is protest at Leeds West Indian Carnival. A look at forms of authority, 'A Protest, A Celebration, A Mixed Message' asks who is really performing. Following Mama Dread's, a troupe whose carnival theme is Caribbean immigration to the UK, we are asked to consider the visibility of black bodies, particularly in rural spaces.
This project is part of the ‘James Baldwin and Britain’ project (2024-2027), led by Douglas Field, Kennetta Hammond Perry and Rob Waters, with thanks for the generous support by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
The film programme is curated by Dr Clive Chijioke Nwonka.
Biographies
Ayo Akingbade is an artist, writer and director. She trained at the London College of Communication and the Royal Academy Schools. Ayo’s short form documentary work has been spotlighted on MUBI & The Criterion Channel. JITTERBUG, which explores displacement in increasingly gentrified Hackney, represents Ayo’s transition into narrative storytelling, and was selected as part of Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival 2022. Her short FALUYI, shot in Nigeria, explores themes of familial legacy and mysticism. Her most recent short KEEP LOOKING, filmed in New York, will hit the festival circuit in 2024. She is currently developing her debut feature with BFI backing. Ayo likes to explore character and the nuances of human interaction and subject matters rooted in the social and political structures that dominate today’s society. She was 2022 Screen Daily Star of Tomorrow.
Rhea Storr is an artist filmmaker who explores the representation of Black and mixed-race cultures. She is a co-director of not nowhere an artists’ film co-operative, London, that has a particular focus on analogue film. She is resident at Somerset House, London and is the winner of the Aesthetica Art Prize 2020 and the inaugural Louis Le Prince Experimental Film Prize.
Ellen E Jones is a journalist, broadcaster and author of Screen Deep: How Film and TV Can Solve Racism and Save the World (Faber, 2024). She is the co-host of BBC Radio 4’s Screenshot, the host of the Barbican’s ScreenTalks podcast and writes regularly on film and television for The Guardian, Empire, Elle, Esquire and others. She was formerly a weekly current affairs columnist at the Evening Standard and The Independent on Sunday, and the resident critic for BBC One’s flagship Film programme
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Cinema 2
Location
Barbican Cinema 1 is located within the main Barbican building on Level -2. Head to Level G and walk towards the Lakeside Terrace where you’ll find stairs and lifts to take you down to the venue floor.
Address
Barbican Centre
Silk Street, London
EC2Y 8DS
Public transport
The Barbican is widely accessible by bus, tube, train and by foot or bicycle. Plan your journey and find more route information in ‘Your Visit’ or book your car parking space in advance.
