Carnival Fantastique

Carnival Fantastique

Vibrant documentary that captures Trinidad's famous street carnival in 1960.

Held over the two days before Ash Wednesday, Trinidad's famous carnival is the most anticipated event of the island's cultural calendar. Here Edric Connor shows us the sights, sounds and quirky customs of this glorious event.

Filmmaker Edric Connor was a Trinidadian actor and singer who popularised Day Dah Light, the song that became an international hit for Harry Belafonte as Day-O (The Banana Boat Song). An actor in British and American films of the 1950s, Connor went on, with his wife Pearl, to set up the first theatrical agency for black British performers, the Afro-Asian-Caribbean Agency.

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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.

17 videos in this collection

An early classic of Black British cinema about the intriguing social dynamics that arise as a ten shilling note is passed around the black community.

Ten Bob in Winter

  • Westminster
  • 1963
Tired of being hassled by the police and with no job opportunities, a group of teenage East End lads plan to rob a bank.

Tunde's Film

  • Stepney
  • 1973
Touching short about the friendship between a white boy and a black girl in 1960s Notting Hill.

Jemima + Johnny

  • Notting Hill
  • 1966
Autobiographical account of a mother-daughter relationship, exploring beauty standards and female sexuality.

The Body Beautiful

  • 1990
A young black ballerina rejects prejudice and finds her African spirit in Swan Lake.

Flight of the Swan

  • 1992
The fatal fascination with the myth of the black feminine mystique is uncovered in Ngozi Onwurah's short

White Men Are Cracking Up

  • 1994
Black gay photographer Ajamu prepares to leave Brixton for an exhibition of his work in his hometown, Huddersfield.

The Homecoming A Short Film about Ajamu

  • Brixton
  • 1995
Julian Henriques' urban musical showcases the style, vernacular and vibrancy of British Caribbean Dancehall culture.

We the Ragamuffin

  • Peckham
  • 1992
A young woman attracts the attention of a street criminal after she prevents his gang from pick-pocketing.

Baby

  • 2010
Insightful exploration of the relationship between a Jamaican mother and her British-born daughter.

Cedar Wood & Silk

  • 1995
A powerfully bittersweet image of the loneliness and sacrifice in migration stories, centred on a Nigerian-British family

Home Away from Home

  • 1993

Caribbean Honeymoon No. 1

  • 1960

Caribbean Honeymoon No. 2

  • 1960

Bound for Lagos

  • 1960

Blues Is My Middle Name

  • 1999
Vibrant documentary that captures Trinidad's famous street carnival in 1960.

Carnival Fantastique

  • 1960
Three convicts escape from prison in British Guyana but cannot find personal freedom.

The Big Pride

  • 1961
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