The filmmakers in this programme highlight the importance of documentary as an archival tool, capturing and recording voices left out of visual histories of the UK. These three intimate and inter-generational portraits of Black individuals and communities across the country - from the Windrush generation and beyond - explore ideas of heritage, the places we call “home” and of finding community. They disrupt and challenge notions of what it means to be “British” and interrogate whose stories get to be recorded and remembered.

All films in this programme are fully captioned.

Missing Voices is part of our nationwide programme TESTIMONIES

Celebrating the work of Black British women and non-binary documentary filmmakers,
made possible with support of BFI Doc Society

PROGRAMME SCHEDULE:

MISSING VOICES
+ Panel discussion featuring directors
Jaha Browne, Liana Stewart & Sandi Hudson-Francis
Chaired by Nadia Denton
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A Very Brit(ish) Voice (Jaha Browne, 2019, 30m)

Award-winning A Very Brit(ish) Voice is a documentary film that explores the stories of Caribbean people who travelled in the UK between 1948 and 1971 and settled in Leicester. The film tells these stories through the words of seven otherwise ‘missing voices’ and reflects their experiences in the community. With contributions from Dennis ‘Sugar’ Christopher, Nelista Cuffy, Elaine Hinds, Robert Lee, Pearl Ricketts, Boston Williams and musical storytelling from Mellow Baku; the film captures the experiences of the Windrush Generation and that of the present generation in their own words.

Black & Welsh (Liana Stewart, 2021, 29m)

When film-maker Liana Stewart was growing up in Butetown, Cardiff, there were very few black and Welsh role models on TV. She has long wanted to make a film that brings together people from across Wales to share their experiences of what it means to be black and Welsh. Now she has done just that. Weaving together a collection of engaging stories, she meets people from Newport in the south to Snowdonia in the north, and from a 19 year-old model storming to international runway success to a 92-year-old whose arrival in Wales predates the Empire Windrush.

The film features actors, comedians, leading business figures, influencers and heroes of their community. Phillip Henry tells how he came to be, what he believes, the only Rastafarian beekeeper in Wales. Musician Eadyth Crawford conveys her pride in being black and Welsh. Leroy Brito recalls his happy childhood in the diverse community of Butetown, and the strange experience of visiting friends wanting to feel his blonde afro. Alexandria Riley, star of The Tuckers, reveals her highs and lows starting out as an actor who hid her Newport accent, to the joy of her first leading role.

The conversation never shies away from talking about the uncomfortable and difficult situations people have been through, but also celebrates the humour, pride and Welshisms familiar to all Welsh people regardless of background in this snapshot of a multicultural nation.

Super Sam (Sandi Hudson-Francis, 2019, 44m)

In 2017, Brixton based filmmaker Sandi Hudson-Francis struck up a friendship with 92 year-old Clovis Salmon, known locally as ‘Sam the Wheels’. She began documenting her encounters with Clovis over a two – year period. 

The filmmaker invites us on a journey to explore the life of a Windrush Generation immigrant through her intimate portrait of Clovis Salmon, who left Jamaica in 1945 to work on sugar plantations in America before settling in Brixton in 1954, where he purchased a Super 8 film Camera and began documenting life around him. 

Super Sam is the first in a series of films by Hudson-Francis that seek to explore her own families mixed Jamaican heritage and the relationship between different generations.

Find out about previous Testimonies screenings →