Rowan Sullivan, Author at FilmRoot

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Indian Food and the British Asian Experience: A Collection of Short Films

Since the pandemic began, I’ve come across a lot of free films to watch online thanks to Cinema Tropical’s Daily Recommendations, Exmilitary’s collection of apocalyptic Eastern European films, as well as art cinemas like Arsenal Berlin unlocking selections of hidden films weekly. The free collections on the BFI Player are another great place to look. That’s where I came across this selection of short films focused Indian food in Britain and the British Asian experience in the 1970s and 1980s.

I’m British But…

You might know Gurinder Chadha from Bend It Like Beckham and Blinded by the Light but you probably haven’t seen her short documentary portrait of British Asians in the 1980s. It’s well worth watching to hear about what it means to be British and Asian from a selection of young people based in different corners of the country. It’s good to watch to be reminded of the cultural influences from South Asia that British people often take for granted. You’ll also get to actually hear the opinion of British Asians themselves – unfortunately still a rare sight in British film and TV.

London Me Bharat

London Me Bharat (India in London) is the first Hindi-language film made in Britain (1972). It’s a short documentary that feels a bit like a made-for-TV special as the narrator describes everything we see. It takes us from London’s main sights, full of tourists to Southall, a district where tourists probably haven’t heard of, which hosts one of the largest Indian communities in Britain. It’s a perfect short documentary for anyone not familiar with the origins of the Indian community in the U.K. and for anyone interested in seeing the multiculturalism of London.

Indian Sweets & Indian Sweets & Savories

These two short TV documentaries feature white British men raiding South Asian sweet shops in London. The first, Indian Sweets, features an incredibly bad mannered white presenter walking around behind the counter grabbing everything he fancies like he owns the place. After taking a bite of each he asks “what’s this then?” before adding it to the pile of sweets that starts to bulge in his hand. The low-light: when introduced to Jalebi’s, he shouts “Jelly Babies?” after taking a huge bite.

The white presenter in Indian Sweets & Savories is a little better. He at least asks the sweet shop owner before he grabs sweets. Unfortunately he relegates Indian food to unhealthy food you’d eat after a night out, fake burps after eating his Thali, and doesn’t do much to ingratiate himself to the restaurant owners that have invited him in. The behavior of both white TV presenters is a window into the Britain of the 1970s and 1980s.

New Ways

Created by Ealing and Hammersmith as an introduction for South Asian people moving to the UK, this 13 minute documentary sets out the basics for adapting to life in Britain. It makes you wonder how many people watched this before or right after arriving in the UK to start a new life. It hardly develops any kind of excitement for life in Britain as it monotonically emphasizes the cold dull weather. It’s patronizing tone must have drawn a lot of raised eyebrows too.

You can watch all of the short films about Indian Food and the British Asian Experience featured above for free on the BFI Player.

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Dakan – Homophobia Disrupting the Future of Two Guineans

Dakan Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Dakan is the first Sub-Saharan African film to deal with homosexuality. The focus of the film is the plight of two high school lovers in a society rejects them. They don’t fit into traditional or modern Guinean society, shown through Manga’s ‘traditional’ mother and Sori’s ‘modern’ father. As a result, they’re condemned to a life without love.

From: Guinea, Africa
Watch: YouTube, Vimeo, Kanopy
Next: Jose, I Am Not a Witch, Tanna

The Breakdown

Dakan experienced a lot of protests in Guinea during its production, and once you see the first scene, you’ll understand why. For many countries around the world, homosexuality is taboo or illegal, so to have an opening scene of two men making out in an orange convertible like a scene from an American hetero high school romance is a bit of a shock for the world’s conservative viewers.

The two lovers are both high school students hoping to get into university. They openly show affection for each other at school, where they are largely accepted and left alone, but at home their relationship provides a source of friction for their parents. For Manga’s single mother, she sees Manga’s relationship with Sori as a curse that will deprive her of grandchildren. In contrast, Sori’s father sees Sori’s relationship with Manga as a distraction from his studies and his prosperous future in business.

They also differ in their way of stopping their son’s relationship. Manga’s mum relies on traditional methods, sending Manga away to a traditional witch doctor to be cured. In contrast, Sori’s father, a ‘modern’ businessman, sends Sori to work for him in his company. However, neither route changes how they feel about each other. Their solemn faces throughout the film only emphasizes that there is no place for them in a traditional society founded on the family, or a ‘modern’ society founded on economic growth. There’s no place for their love in Guinea.

Overall Dakan is a good African film that uses homophobia to talk about the common African and third cinema tropes of modernity and tradition. There was a moment in Dakan where I feared the film would turn into an HIV disaster film like Kijiji Changu but fortunately Mohamed Camara doesn’t diminish the relatively progressive portrayal of homosexuality in Africa.

What to Watch Next

If you’re looking for more films from the global south that portray homosexual relationships in countries that don’t have a place for it, check out Jose from Guatemala and Rafiki from Kenya.

Or for more witch doctors trying to cure people in Africa, Zambia’s unique I Am Not A Witch is a must watch.

Finally for more films that feature Romeo + Juliet relationships that are forbidden by society, check out Tanna, featuring an controversial relationship that crosses tribes in Vanuata.

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Dhalinyaro – Online African Film Festival

Dhalinyaro doesn’t tread the same paths of other African films set in Islamic countries. Instead of focusing on themes of patriarchy, tradition, or sexism that provides the main conflict in films like Papicha, Freedom Fields, Beauty and the Dogs, and Flesh Out, Dhalinyaro focuses on a fiercely independent trio of girls from modern Djibouti. Lula Ali Ismail’s debut feature, feels more like a companion to Celine Sciamma’s Girlhood or the first 20 minutes of Mounia Meddour’s Papicha with the friendship between three girls. It’s an impressive debut feature that is also the first film from Djibouti.

The main conflict of the film sits between the three girls. Their class differences are emphasized in the size and space of their houses, their everyday meals, and methods of transport (private vs. public). However, they’re also immediately distinguishable in the way that they dress. Hibo, a spoiled girl from a wealthy family shows the most skin, whilst Asma, from an underprivileged background is almost always fully covered. Deka, who sits in the middle in terms of class, is moderately dressed, serving as the middle ground between her two friends. Because she takes up the middle ground between Hibo and Asma, she’s the audience’s mediator in the relationship between the three girls.

Their backgrounds affect how they see the future. They all attend the same school, and are all good students, but the differing size of their support networks provide different opportunities to each of them. For Hibo, the most wealthy, her future is already decided. She will study abroad just like her sister, regardless of grades. For Asma, the poorest, her future is also decided. Her family cannot afford to send her abroad so she has no choice but to continue her studies in Djibouti no matter what grades she gets. Deka, our mediator, has the luxury of choice. She can decide to work hard and study abroad as her mother wants, or choose to study at home. In showing how the characters from different classes view their future, Lula Ali Ismail depicts the lack of class mobility in Djibouti. Asma will stay poor and Hibo will stay rich. Only Deka has the opportunity to change.

Dhalinyaro is a high school drama with depth and great character development. Hopefully it won’t be the last film we see from Lula Ali Ismail or Djibouti.

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Tune Into The Future – Luxembourg City Film Festival 2020

Many decades before the internet gave us nerd culture, there was Hugo Gernsback, an eccentric Luxembourgish writer and inventory who went on to become the father of modern science fiction.
Festival Scope

Tune into the Future tracks Hugo Gernsback’s life and inventions from his roots in Luxembourg and Europe, to finding his path and career in New York. It’s a story told with plenty of animations, interviews, personal anecdotes from his grandson, with references stretching from Tesla and Superman (Superman’s creator was inspired by Hugo’s publications).

Tune into the Future starts with some small square black and white footage of Hugo back in the day before the narrator interrupts the footage to tell us we’re missing the true (colorful) story. At this point the small black and white square footage expands to take up the entire screen and starts parading through images of Hugo’s fantastic speculative inventions from the future. The director, Eric Schockmel knows the inventions are the most eye catching part of Hugo’s work so he uses them to get us hooked in order to tell Hugo’s life story.

The director’s experience working with Museum Exhibits definitely shines through this documentary. He successfully manages to keep the audience engaged and interested throughout by mixing dry one on one interviews and personal anecdotes with animations that bring the anecdotes and Hugo’s ideas to life. It reminded me a bit of the educational YouTube videos made by Kurzgesagt – informative, but always engaging.

The way the documentary is presented matches Hugo’s own attempts to popularize science. He, like the director, used a mix of media to promote visions of utopia and drive interest in science across the world. In Schockmel’s case, he makes the film to rejuvenate Hugo’s efforts to popularize science in a time when experts and utopian ideas are being forgotten around the world. It’s time for the world to start dreaming again.

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Gibrey Allen on Becoming a Filmmaker and Directing Right Near the Beach

The debut feature from Gibrey Allen, Right Near the Beach, was one of our favorite films at the Pan African Film Festival 2020 in Los Angeles. It builds on the themes of grief and homophobia in Allen’s 2011 short film Excuses for Jeff with a unique visual style and soundscape which makes you feel like you’re in the film, right next to the characters.

So we’re excited to present a brief interview with Gibrey Allen himself. Scroll down for the interview, and be sure to follow Gibrey Allen on Instagram (@DearMayFilms) for updates on Right Near the Beach‘s release. You can read our review of Gibrey’s debut feature here.

First of all, what inspired you to become a filmmaker?

Before I started making films I was acting. I was always interested in film-making but the drive to create better roles than what I was been offered was the impetus.

I found that in my first project Excuses for Jeff. The end to end creative process was a both a great challenge and joy. Living every aspect of the film-making process gave me a greater purpose than playing a character. Creating and having control of how story is told, particularly stories about the black experience, is important. Stories that celebrate or show true conflict, or stories that aren’t trivial, are important to me. That is my film-making mission.

What drew you to the story of Jeff and homophobia in Jamaica?

Homophobia in Jamaica unfortunately is a very real and prominent thing. The music can sometimes inform this, as well as religion, laws and politics which in turn normalizes homophobic thinking. It makes you forget what every human being wants; love and acceptance. Migrating from Jamaica to New York, where sexuality is varied and open, made me see the LGBTQ community not for their sexual interactions but for the people they are. With the story of Jeff I wanted to tell a very human story, not the usual approach I have seen in films and documentaries. To tell and move a story with cinema; the music, the sound, and visuals is what I love about film-making. I didn’t want to lecture with this film, I wanted to appeal to the heart.

How was filming in Jamaica?

Filming overall was a good experience. Most of the issues stemmed from a budgetary stand point; a smaller crew and not being able to get all the locations we’d hope for. Early on we figured we’d embrace these things, looking at what we did have and use that to make an even more intimate story.

Did having Excuses for Jeff help in the production of Right Near the Beach?

Yes. Knowing the area and landscape helped. Forehand knowledge of some of the challenges and logistics, such transportation and accommodations. It also helped with the writing process because I knew which characters to tell the story best through.

How did you develop your process for your first feature film versus making you short films?

The feature was the same approach as the shorts. Not necessarily by design but because the feature was shot in three different trips over a year and a half. The scope of things didn’t become so grandiose and production didn’t become a huge moving thing.

What informed your visual style and soundscape for Right Near the Beach?

I want a voyeuristic view into the life of Mr. Jacob, the father. Almost like you’re eavesdropping on something you’re not supposed to see, someone in deep pain and mourning. The movement of the camera to react violently when he’s angry, the movement slowing down in the quiet and pensive moments. Terrence Malick’s visual language was a great reference and also Lance Hammer’s Ballast.

We embraced the nature sounds; the flora and fauna that are natural to the farm and rural setting. Quiet moments were also very important so you had time to feel and get pulled into the journey. For the Mike character we used more post-production sounds, sounds that call back to his past and childhood. More mechanical sounds which underscore the demons he’s living with.

What challenges did you face in building the style into the film?

The main challenge that we found was that we didn’t have lots of coverage on shots. With the one-take approach that we primarily used we had to shoot until we got the take that worked. This was also magnified because the cast were all local players. There’s a bit of safety in having full coverage, you can cut away to another angle or to other subjects if something doesn’t work with a particular take.

Do you feel like you made the film you set out to make, or did your vision for the film change in the film-making process?

Yes, the overall idea and feel of the story came through. However, the film process was very fluid and organic. We had to embrace everything that came along. Weather for example was a big one. It’s a tropical climate so it would rain or get overcast. Rather than waiting for these things to pass we used them to heighten moments in the film.

How is your release going so far?

No release yet as the hope is to build an audience and buzz through festivals before we take that step.

Where can readers catch the film next?

Not sure yet as COVID-19 has affected the festival run. Follow @DearMayFilms on Instagram for updates.

Do you have any projects in the works?

Yes, currently in pre-production on the next feature, also set in Jamaica. Can’t give much details yet but I can say it’s going be in the western style.

What films, books, music, art can we look up to get to know you better?

Films: The cinematic language I like are that of Terence Malick, Lars Von Trier, Steven McQueen (Please watch Hunger), Thomas Vinterberg. Pretty much anything that Roger Deakins and Emmanuel Lubezki photographs.

Music: Tons of Reggae; Beres Hammond, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, Ken Booth, Toots and the Maytals. Blues, Folk music and anything that promotes me keeping my beard.

Follow Gibrey Allen @DearMayFilms on Instagram for updates on where to watch Right Near the Beach. You can read our full review of Right Near the Beach here.