For decades, the lives of Black British people have been presented on our screens through a white cultural lens, resulting in stories related to these communities being skewed, sensationalised, skimmed over, or simply ignored altogether. However, generations of community groups and grassroots filmmakers have worked to redress that balance, creating works that communicate their own experiences and perspectives on life in Britain, while capturing the stories of their neighbours, relatives and elders.

This collection brings together examples of this important community work, including oral history interviews from the Black Cultural Archives, the Brixton-based institution set up in 1981 to combat “a lack of popular recognition of, and representation by people of African and Caribbean descent in the UK”. These personal stories sit alongside works produced by initiatives such as the Black Arts Video Project, Black Women’s Media Project and WITCH, which use documentary, performance and personal expression to explore themes of identity, memory and cultural history.

Individually, these works offer windows into the lives of others; taken as a whole, they create a living tapestry of community history, using video, independent filmmaking and regional television as an act of cultural activism.