Handsworth Songs (18)

HOME is screening Handsworth Songs on Thursday 22 October, a poetic film essay by the Black Audio Film Collective that looks at race and civil disorder in 1980s Britain. It's showing in Theatre 2 as part of the London Film Festival series they're running at the moment, so it's one of several LFF titles you can catch in Manchester without having to head down to the capital.

The film takes its starting point from the civil disturbances that broke out in September and October 1985 in the Handsworth district of Birmingham, and in other urban centres across the country, including London. From there it opens out into a wider meditation on race and disorder in Britain during that decade, rather than staying focused on a single event. It's described as a film essay, which gives you a good sense of how it works: it's less a linear narrative and more a piece of thinking on screen, weaving together images and ideas around those riots and the climate that surrounded them.

The Black Audio Film Collective were a collective of filmmakers and artists who worked together throughout the eighties and nineties, and Handsworth Songs is one of their most enduring pieces. It's a film that asks you to sit with the history it's tracing, so it's the kind of thing that works best when you've got the time to let it land. If you've been following the LFF series at HOME, this fits right in with the rest of the programme.

It's on Thursday 22 October in Theatre 2 at HOME, Manchester. If you're planning to go, it's worth checking the full LFF line-up they've got running alongside it, as there are other screenings to pair it with.