Sikh Matron
- Kinver
- 1985-10-13
Wrestling as a metaphor for race relations in this short aimed at Britain's South-Asian community
Greco-Roman, professional, or lubricated in oil - despite its diversity, wrestling is not the most obvious metaphor for race relations. But the important concept here is that of rules and fair play, with a referee in the shape of the Race Relations Board to police the Race Relations Act of 1976. The film is clearly intended for a British South Asian audience.
Animation film promoting the work of the Race Relations Board.
From local news to feature film, through home movies and TV documentaries, this collection showcases South Asian Britons in front of and behind the camera. The contribution of colonial troops is illuminated through the earliest newsreels, while hardhitting current affairs programmes highlight the struggles faced in the 1960s, 1970s and beyond. Public information films produced for South Asian audiences feature alongside Hindi-language films made in Britain and interviews with prominent Asian-British figures. A bold wave of British Asian filmmaking in the 1990s is represented through early works by the likes of Gurinder Chadha and Asif Kapadia.