Black and White Pirate Show (The Eleventh Hour)
A detailed, richly illustrated documentary about the choppy waters and changing politics of pirate radio in Britain, featuring different sounds and DJs.
From the offshore stations of the 1960s to pirate radio in the inner cities, pushing different music and agendas, pirate radio's detailed yet compact story is the subject of this documentary. Birmingham Film and Video Collective cast their critical eye and implicitly offer thoughts on how music consumption and its politics had changed between the 1960s and the 1980s.
Veteran DJ Tony Blackburn is comfortable at Radio 1 but was previously with the 1960s pirates.His conservative views on the status quo and popular tunes clash with the modern alternative pirate radio shows where Lepke and Rankin' Miss P introduce new sounds and shake it up. As journalist and cultural theorist Paul Gilroy says here, the new Black music and DJs found a mix of Black and white audiences in ways that would be difficult to do in other contexts.
Punning on the title of The Black and White Minstrel Show, The Black and White Pirate Show highlights the links between racial injustice, power and notions of consensus by way of the choices that DJs make and the legislation that governs radio broadcasting. The highly informative, illustrative documentary, which gives equal weight to the different eras under discussion, includes much archive and contemporary observation footage - including, by chance, the documentation of a police raid following the 1987 Green Paper on radio which helped to facilitate the seizing of pirate radio equipment.
The Birmingham Video Collective, who received regular funding from Channel 4, the BFI and other bodies by way of the 1982 Workshop Declaration, used film to think through their interest in left-wing politics and alternative histories. Members Yugesh Walia had been important in making films about the black experience in the city and documenting the Handsworth Cultural Centre. Other members had attended classes led by seminal sociologist, black cultural theorist, and historian Stuart Hall.
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Black & S. Asian Arts Filmmaking
Exploring the rich and extensive shared history of Black and South Asian filmmaking.
Collaboration has been at the heart of the work of Black and South Asian artists, from the Black theatre movement of the 60s and 70s to the film and video workshops of the 80s and 90s. This reflects an emphasis on collectivism as a way of sharing resources, as well as a political expression.
Britain's Black and South Asian communities have long shared similar themes and dealt with shared experiences in the present, while often making potent creative connections with artistic traditions in Africa, South Asia and Caribbean. This selection of videos, mostly drawn from the 1980s and 90s, encompasses a rich variety of genres and forms.
