Multi-cultural Fortnight in Cambridge

From the collection of

East Anglian Film Archive at the University of East Anglia

The East Anglian Film Archive, the UK's first regional film archive, offers a unique record of the East of England's social and cultural history. As part of the University of East Anglia, we continue to lead moving image heritage research and inspire audience participation through community projects and events. Our collections represent a broad range of amateur and professional creativity, from 1896 to the present day.

Multi-cultural Fortnight in Cambridge

East Anglian Film Archive at the University of East Anglia
Cambridge
1978-08-16
Sound
3m

Welcome to the Multicultural Fortnight in Cambridge where children learn to banish cultural stereotypes learned from TV.

Anglia TV observe the play activity of children in Cambridge who are taking part in a fortnight-long pilot project to educate on world cultures, organised by international children's charity ‘Save The Children'. Led by Workshop Leader David Green, the children learn the popular song ‘Flea Fly Flow' typically sung in American playgrounds, and then act out what they think is the cultural activity of Native Americans as learned from television, that turns out to be cliché.

Between 1976-1990 David Green served with Save the Children, eventually becoming Deputy Secretary-General. Green was awarded the Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1999 and was made a Knight Commander in 2005.

Black Lives

Portraits of public and private lives against the shifting social climate of 20th century Britain.

Black communities, like many Global majority groups, have long been ill-served by a mainstream British media accustomed to reflecting predominantly white, middle-class lives - a problem entrenched in the second half of the 20th century with the rise of television. Yet a rich tapestry of work from across the boundaries of fiction and non-fiction, film and TV, made for (though not always by) black people, does exist. This selection contains many surprises – some joyous, some sobering, some heartbreaking – and highlights the often painfully slow progress in addressing negative representations and stereotypes on screen. Impassioned and sometimes violent dispatches from the front line in the fight for racial equality can be found here, but so too can records of progress: in the pioneers breaking new ground in culture, politics and sport, and in the more mundane glimpses of everyday life. And this story is not just London’s story: the selection takes a journey around Britain, to a Nigerian wedding in 1960s Cornwall, an ‘African village’ in Essex and a Caribbean restaurant opening in West Bromwich; Newcastle