Two By Black Audio Film Collective: Handsworth Songs

In October 1985 Britain witnessed a spate of civil disturbances in the Birmingham district of Handsworth and in urban centres of London. These were violent, tragic events, marked by the death of an elderly black woman, Joy Gardner and a white policeman, Keith Blakelock . Handsworth Songs takes as its point of departure these events and the inability of the British media to go beyond its concern with demonising or rationalising the rioters and their motives, to break the anxiety-driven loop of morbid responses to the presence of black people in Britain.