John Akomfrah (and Black Audio Film Collective)

Handsworth Songs (1986)
Selected by Lisa Oppenheim



More an experimental cinematic essay than a documentary, John Akomfrah and the Black Audio Collective’s Handsworth Songs (1986) is an erudite examination of race and class in grim Thatcherite Britain. Music becomes both a structuring framework of the film and a site of resistance. A 1988 quote from Michael O’Pray found in the program notes of a recent screening at Tate Britain seems to provide a particularly appropriate introduction to the film: 'The song, is a cultural form which can dig as deep as any analysis ... The poetry of song ... is a potent weapon…”
---Lisa Oppenheim