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Shongram + intro

In partnership with the London Bengali Film Festival

In this powerful romantic drama set during the 1971 liberation struggle of Bangladesh, a reporter interviews a British Bengali on his deathbed, where four decades later, Karim is able to recall and finally share his past. Profound, potent, and poignant, the emotional swoop of Shongram entertains and educates in equal measure.London Bengali Film Festival LOGO

The film will be introduced by the filmmaker Munsur Ali.

FREE. Tickets available from the Rich Mix website.

Part of Roots. More information here.

 

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Notes on Blindness (HoH screening)

When writer and theologian John Hull went blind in 1983, he began keeping an audiocassette diary of his daily life. When it was published in 1990, Oliver Sacks described it as ‘the most extraordinary, precise, deep and beautiful account of blindness’. Using total access to the recordings, Notes on Blindness is an ever-evolving artistic project that has included a short film and an engrossing VR experience. Dubbing actors with the recorded voice of Hull, its exploration of how dreams, memories and imagination are impacted by a lack of sight, this is a formally extraordinary insight into a hidden interior world.

This screening will provide captions for the hard of hearing. Following the screening there will be a discussion about hard of hearing subtitling with Pablo Romero-Fresco (University of Roehampton). There will be a BSL interpreter present. 

Tickets are available from the Genesis website here.

Limited number of FREE tickets available here.

Part of Roots. More information here.

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Mariam + EXPLOITING IT?

Saudi Arabian journalist Faiza Ambah’s debut film is a poignant insight into the issues facing a young Muslim woman growing up in a Western country. It’s 2004 in France and a new law has recently been passed banning religious symbols in schools, including the hijab. For Mariam, a young teenager who has recently begun wearing the veil after returning from pilgrimage in Mecca with her grandmother, this means an agonising and unfair choice between continuing her studies and retaining an important part of her religious identity. Pressure from her father to conform to French law and attention from a young boy who admires her determination complicates this situation further. Will she continue to resist external pressures and in so doing put her education at risk, or find a way to please authority whilst staying true to herself?

+ EXPLOITING IT?
Dir: Jade Jackman
UK | 17 min

In this thought-provoking documentary by first-time filmmaker Jade Jackman, several different British-Muslim women share their recent experiences of being negatively portrayed or stereotyped by the western media. Through these women’s perspectives we see an unexpected form of oppression that contradicts and challenges the misinformed view that these women are in fact oppressed by their faith. Furthermore, this short film offers an insight into how governmental legislation, such as Prevent and the Counter Terrorism and Security Bill, is seeping into different areas of life and institutionalising racist stereotypes.

Followed by Q&A with the producer Aleksandra Bilic and special guests.

Tickets available on the Genesis website here.

Limited number of FREE tickets available for Under 18 / student / unwaged: BOOK

Part of Roots, for more information click here.

 

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Half Way + panel

Half Way chronicles the life of a normal family living in Epping forced into homelessness after being evicted from their house, going from one hostel to another as they wait for a new home from the council, during Britain’s exploding housing crisis. Filmed over a period of a year by the eldest daughter of the family, this immersive documentary is a powerful personal story and a moving insight into the struggles and the Kafkian experience of dealing with the merciless housing bureaucracy that thousands of families in Britain are fighting against today.

Following the screening there will be a women-lead panel discussion with the filmmaker and guests, focusing on the role that campaigning women had in the history of the East End and still have around the topics of homelessness and gentrification. Guests include: Daisy-May Hudson (filmmaker and producer for Vice Magazine), Carly-Jayne Hutchinson (Focus E15), Victoria Spratt (features editor, The Debrief), chaired by Andrea Luka Zimmerman (Fugitive Images, filmmaker of “Estate – A Reverie”). 

FREE. Tickets via Rich Mix website BOOK NOW. 

Part of Roots, more information here.