The Body Beautiful

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Contains nudity

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The Body Beautiful

1990
Sound
Closed captions
23m

Autobiographical account of a mother-daughter relationship, exploring beauty standards and female sexuality.

This autobiographical narrative redefines female beauty and sexuality by reflecting on filmmaker Ngozi Onwurah's relationship with her mother. Onwurah's discovery of her sexual appeal as a young model is combined with an intimate account of her mother Madge's experience of desexualisation after having a mastectomy. The cinematic treatment of the female body challenges viewers to acknowledge the rarely-seen sexuality and desire of (mature) women, outside of dominant beauty standards.

An examination of the real-life relationship between the director and her mother Madge. Using flashbacks and reminiscences by both women, the film takes us through the childhood experiences previously explored in Onwurah's earlier film Coffee Coloured Children.

Black British Filmmaking

A selection of shorts and features by black writers and directors, from milestones of the 60s and 70s to contemporary hits.

For much of the history of British film and TV, black stories were overseen by white filmmakers. By the 1960s, black writers and directors were demanding to tell their own stories, in their own way. This collection celebrates the work of black storytellers who have enriched our understanding of the black British experience. Landmark features like Horace Ové's Pressure (1975) and Menelik Shabazz's Burning an Illusion (1981) stand beside earlier milestones in short filmmaking by Lionel Ngakane and Lloyd Reckord, and 1990s work by Isaac Julien and Julian Henriques. And you'll find hits by leading lights in new black British cinema, including Noel Clarke, Destiny Ekaragha and Debbie Tucker Green. The collection also highlights the work of Ngozi Onwurah, who became the first black British woman director to get a UK theatrical release with her extraordinary debut feature Welcome II the Terrordome (1995), a controversial dystopian fable unavailable for many years.