John Akomfrah:
Three Films

In the 1980s, the Black Audio Film Collective, a group of young Black British artists that included artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah, examined the legacies of empire in the United Kingdom. An experimental film essay on race and civil disorder in 1980s Britain, Akomfrah’s Handsworth Songs takes as its point of departure the civil disturbances of 1985. A film that combines political inquiry and poetic beauty, Handsworth Songs won seven international awards, including the British Film Institute’s prestigious Grierson Award for Best Documentary.

Film details

Year: 1986
Running time: 58 minutes 33 seconds
Format: Single channel 16mm film transferred to video, sound
Director: John Akomfrah
Producer: Lina Gopaul
Source: Smoking Dogs Films

Structured as an allegorical fable, The Nine Muses is a stylized and idiosyncratic telling of the history of mass migration from Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia to rebuild post-war Britain. This film is a monument to a forgotten generation.

Weaving Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, stunning winter vistas, and a vast array of archival material, The Nine Muses is divided into nine overlapping musical chapters to create a philosophical rumination on the emigrants’ experience, the journey, and the idea of home.

Film details

Year: 2011
Running time: 94 minutes
Format: Digital
Director: John Akomfrah
Producer: Lina Gopaul and David Lawson
Source: Smoking Dogs Films

The Stuart Hall Project is the intimate and engaging portrait of Stuart Hall, the Jamaican born pubic intellectual and co-founder of the New Left Review, whose work in cultural studies profoundly influenced the political landscape and academic landscape.

Weaving between the musical archeology of Miles Davis and the political narratives of the twentieth century, director John Akomfrah carefully constructs archival sequences of rare, forgotten, and long since seen historical material.

Film details

Year: 2013
Running time: 95 minutes
Format: Digital
Director: John Akomfrah
Producer: Lina Gopaul and David Lawson
Source: Smoking Dogs Films