Suchergebnisse

One of the most significant, independent, political films made in the UK was Injustice – about black deaths in custody from 1993–1999. Despite attempts by the police to suppress the film and refusal by television to show it, it was eventually screened in hundreds of community venues, cinemas and won many awards at film festivals. Ultimately it was viewed by the Attorney General, who then called for a review of decision-making over prosecutions. A founder of Migrant Media, the radical documentary group which made the film, discusses how the group formed, its vision of filmmaking, its struggles with officialdom, and how it helped form community resistance models including the United Families and Friends Campaign on deaths in custody. This article is based on an interview for the book Dying for Justice (IRR, 2015) which carried an abridged version. It provides a unique insider perspective on the role of contemporary, radical, community-embedded filmmaking.1

Obstinate memory is an insistent resource for communities. Migrant Media advocates the methodology of a "documentary of force" as a research tool for filmmakers and academics. As a U.K.-based collective of filmmaker-activists involved in community struggles, Migrant Media's resistance-based work uses cameras and screens to challenge racism and police violence. Drawing on film documentary history from figures as diverse as Dziga Vertov, Jean-Luc Godard, Black Audio Film Collective, and Third Cinema, the Migrant Media story is revealed through attempts to ban the 2001 film Injustice and a more recent series filmed with nurses during the coronavirus pandemic. We suggest some directions for further research at the end.