Artist filmmaker Rhea Storr makes work about the representation of Black and mixed-race cultures, asking where images fail or resist them, and occasionally drawing on her own rural upbringing and British Bahamian heritage. She often works on 16mm film and is currently undertaking a PhD entitled ‘Towards a Black British Aesthetic: How is Black Radical Imagination realised through 16mm filmmaking practices?’. Winner of the Aesthetica Art Prize 2020 and the inaugural Louis Le Prince Experimental Film Prize, her work has been screened in festivals worldwide. She is co-director of artists’ film co-operative, not nowhere, and a resident at Somerset House.
Taking Screening Days online and reflecting on all of the events of this year has given us an opportunity to think about how we can do some things differently; including opening up our platform to bring you films you may not yet be aware of, but which may connect you to new audiences in your communities.
Introducing… is a new slot for Screening Days and with it, we hope to open up a new space for discovery and collaboration.
For this first edition we looked for films beyond the awards season and the release calendar, highlighting key works by three contemporary British filmmakers: Bim Ajadi, Corine Dhondee and Rhea Storr. These films will be available to watch singly or together on our platform throughout Virtual Screening Days.
We are very grateful to our friends at Culture Kinetica, Club des Femmes and London Short Film Festival for their suggestions and will invite others for future events.
The films
Bradford Young: Cinema is the Weapon
Dir: Corine Dhondee | UK | 2019 | 8 mins
“In this pivotal short film, Corine Dhondee explores the Oscar and BAFTA-nominated cinematographer Bradford Young’s works Mother Of George (2013), Selma (2014), Middle of Nowhere (2012) and When They See Us (2019), and what meaning they have for him. Central is the outlining of Bradford Young’s location within a lineage of visual artists he always claims as inspirations as well as “echo chambers” who are actively formulating a new black aesthetics.” (liquid blackness)
“A great film on a masterful cinematographer providing valuable insight into Bradford Young’s creative process. A real triumph.” (Larry Clark – L.A. Rebellion, Passing Through).
Award-winning filmmaker Corine Dhondee has written, directed and produced narrative and documentary shorts that have screened at BAFTA and Oscar-qualifying film festivals. Bradford Young: Cinema is the Weapon has screened at art centres, community events and film festivals in the USA and UK and won the Women In Film Award at the 2020 Earls Court Film Festival. Her documentary The Queen’s Suite (2016) screened at Hot Docs and Sheffield Doc/Fest. Previously, Corine worked in TV and film AD departments including on Solo: A Star Wars Story and in 2018, she was director’s assistant to Armando Iannucci on The Personal History of David Copperfield.
Booking enquiries to Corine Dhondee.
A Protest, A Celebration, A Mixed Message
Dir: Rhea Storr | UK | 2018 | 12 mins
Celebration is protest at Leeds West Indian Carnival. Investigating forms of authority, A Protest, A Celebration, A Mixed Message explores who gets to perform and who therefore has power. Following Mama Dread, 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.
Booking enquiries to Rhea Storr.
Here/Not Here
Dir: Bim Ajadi | UK | 2020 | 30 mins
Directed by BAFTA breakthrough nominee and Deaf artist Bim Ajadi and written by hip hop legend Jonzi D, Here/Not Here brings together a diverse creative team and a cast made up of both Deaf and hearing actors, and combines various elements of dance – including Krump, hip hop and Visual Vernacular (VV), a poetic and choreographic form of sign dance. A funny, thought-provoking hip hop drama, it sees three rival gangs, Deaf VVers, footballers and Krumpers, clash over an abandoned warehouse space they all think of as their own. Despite their differences, they discover that movement is their language, using it to communicate, collaborate and come together. Here/Not Here is fully accessible to both hearing and non-hearing audiences. For more insight into its production, see this short film on BSL Zone.
Bim Ajadi is an accomplished and award winning independent filmmaker. Over the past 15 years, he has worked for broadcasters including the BBC and Channel 4 and independently as a director and editor, producing high quality television documentaries, music videos and dramatic shorts.
Booking enquiries to producer, Anne Beresford.
