[Script Info]
Title: 
[Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,0:00:08.40,0:00:10.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,♪energetic strings♪
Dialogue: 0,0:00:36.60,0:00:43.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,When I was younger, the dream was to go and \Nstudy art history and I just wanted to be
Dialogue: 0,0:00:43.92,0:00:49.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,an art historian. Not even an artist, just an art \Nhistorian, and I don't know where that came from.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:55.44,0:00:57.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I think the first time I came here,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:58.68,0:01:06.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I would have been 14 and came back every month \Nuntil I left West London to go to university.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:09.54,0:01:15.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I started with the gentler one's, the Constables. \NAnd Constable always feels like that for me,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:15.30,0:01:20.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it feels like the beginning of \None's initiation to painting.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:20.70,0:01:24.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's a sort of fateful rendition of \NEnglish countryside. I get that sort
Dialogue: 0,0:01:24.78,0:01:29.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of familiarity with certain features of \Nthe English landscape. I get all of that.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:29.63,0:01:37.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Turner's my guy because there there's an act of \Nwill and imagination, which is at the forefront
Dialogue: 0,0:01:41.52,0:01:48.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,with what I call his cinematic eye. It's \Na painting, but it feels like you're
Dialogue: 0,0:01:48.24,0:01:49.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in the disaster.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:51.12,0:01:54.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Everything I love about \NTurner from the beginning is right there.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:56.88,0:02:01.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,When you're a kid, you're made by paintings \Nbecause they teach you to be a human being.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:01.50,0:02:04.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They didn't teach me to be a Black person, \Nbut they taught me to be a human being.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:07.02,0:02:15.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Slowly, it dawned on me, that it's a sort of \Ntemple of whiteness, everywhere you look you can
Dialogue: 0,0:02:15.96,0:02:24.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,see it. And that whiteness is offered to you by \Nthe paintings as a sort of vision of excellence.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:27.06,0:02:34.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's almost like a psychoanalytic moment of \Nbecoming. The very thing that you love may well
Dialogue: 0,0:02:34.50,0:02:40.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,be also the thing that's keeping you in a state \Nof discomfort about your place in the culture.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:42.83,0:02:47.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And so, you have to find another way of coming at
Dialogue: 0,0:02:47.36,0:02:54.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the thing you love, by embellishing it with other \Nhistories and other stories and other narratives.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:58.70,0:03:02.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I became interested in making multi \Nscreen films because it seemed a
Dialogue: 0,0:03:02.82,0:03:06.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,way of bringing disparate interests together.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:07.98,0:03:15.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,In a project in which you've shot material \Nyourself, having archival material immediately
Dialogue: 0,0:03:15.25,0:03:20.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,says, multiplicity or voices at work, rather than \Na voice.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:23.05,0:03:26.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'm more choreographer than creator.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:34.75,0:03:36.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[John] I always love this stuff.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:36.00,0:03:36.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,— Yeah.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:36.50,0:03:38.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[John] Somehow you can\Njust see, I don't know,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:38.50,0:03:41.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but weirdly you can\Nsee that that's 4K.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:41.22,0:03:44.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Qasim] Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's\Nlike more detail in the lines.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:44.39,0:03:46.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[John] Yeah, it's just more\Ndetail, it's just more light.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:46.53,0:03:48.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Qasim] Yeah.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:48.20,0:03:49.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[John] Um, oh look at that.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:49.47,0:03:52.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Whole range, but you can see, what's going on
Dialogue: 0,0:03:52.82,0:03:53.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Qasim] Amazing, yeah.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:53.84,0:03:55.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Laughs]
Dialogue: 0,0:03:55.10,0:03:57.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[John] Oh, oh yeah. Yeah, go back.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:57.47,0:04:04.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,If you live as I did in London, growing up \Nas a person of color, one of the missions
Dialogue: 0,0:04:04.08,0:04:12.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was to understand who you were and then by \Nimplication, make sense of that to everybody else.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:15.48,0:04:19.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That this was a feeling I shared \Nwith others was really important
Dialogue: 0,0:04:19.98,0:04:22.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for how Black Audio Film Collective came about.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:24.78,0:04:29.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We came together as a group in the same \Nart college on the south coast of England.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:33.12,0:04:36.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We heard from friends across the \Ncountry that something was going on
Dialogue: 0,0:04:36.84,0:04:39.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in Handsworth and that we \Nshould come and document it.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:40.85,0:04:42.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Woman] The youths are angry.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:43.65,0:04:45.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Not only the unemployment
Dialogue: 0,0:04:45.92,0:04:47.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That is just in the background.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:48.58,0:04:51.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That just-- everybody feel that. Right?\N
Dialogue: 0,0:04:51.29,0:04:52.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That's not a major part.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:52.60,0:04:56.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's the harassment that is\Ngoing on with the black people in the area...
Dialogue: 0,0:04:57.89,0:05:05.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[John] One of the features of the 70's and 80's \Nwas a spate of riots across the country.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:05.52,0:05:10.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The reasons why a young group of \NBlack men and women would take
Dialogue: 0,0:05:10.26,0:05:14.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to the street had something to do \Nwith the present, of course. But,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:14.58,0:05:19.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it is also a kind of accumulation of all sorts \Nof other events, which leads to that point.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:20.53,0:05:24.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Woman] These are for those\Nto whom history has not been friendly.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:25.72,0:05:29.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,For those who have known the\Ncruelties of political becoming.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:29.82,0:05:37.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[John] One of the things you needed to do was to remind \Npeople that the riots were simply stalked by
Dialogue: 0,0:05:37.14,0:05:38.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,all these other history's.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:40.83,0:05:44.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Handsworth Songs" was an attempt to try and do that.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:47.04,0:05:51.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We wanted to raise the question of \NBlack representation in filmmaking.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:52.26,0:05:54.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,By the 90's, we felt like we'd done it.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:55.62,0:06:00.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We continue to be friends and allies even thought \Nwe don't work together as a collective anymore.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:05.16,0:06:09.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Literally, a couple of months \Nago what defined this square was
Dialogue: 0,0:06:09.96,0:06:18.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,permanent camps of people who were pro Brexit and \Npeople who were very definitely anti Brexit. And
Dialogue: 0,0:06:18.66,0:06:25.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of course it's all gone now. It feels like a done \Ndeal, it really does and depressingly so actually.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:28.14,0:06:33.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Increasingly, there's a kind of \Ndisenchantment with being in London.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:36.24,0:06:41.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Most of us who are foreign looking got \Nthe narrative very early on that apart
Dialogue: 0,0:06:41.28,0:06:45.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from anything else, what Brexit was \Nabout was saying, "We don't want you."
Dialogue: 0,0:06:46.74,0:06:51.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And it made you feel momentarily ruthless.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:52.50,0:06:55.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now that it feels as if it's "Over,"
Dialogue: 0,0:06:55.92,0:07:00.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,part of the accepting it is also not to \Nallow yourself to be destabilized by it.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:03.66,0:07:10.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The essence of all experiments, be it in politics \Nor aesthetics or narrative is that, there has to
Dialogue: 0,0:07:10.64,0:07:15.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,be a way in which the past, present, and the \Nfuture can be brought into some sort of whole.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:21.96,0:07:27.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It is impossible to overstate \Nthe significance of the sea in
Dialogue: 0,0:07:27.08,0:07:30.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the formation of the African \Ndiaspora and Black identity.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:36.90,0:07:41.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Vertigo Sea" was made up \Nof readings from "Moby Dick."
Dialogue: 0,0:07:42.48,0:07:47.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Accounts of enslaved Africans perishing \Nat sea and certainly, the Vietnamese
Dialogue: 0,0:07:47.76,0:07:53.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,boat crisis' of the 70's, people trying to \Nescape from North Vietnam to come to Europe.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:56.64,0:07:59.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It was important that it felt episodic.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:02.22,0:08:07.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,When I installed "Vertigo Sea" at \NTurner Contemporary, we had a Turner,
Dialogue: 0,0:08:07.32,0:08:13.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and the painting we chose was "The Deluge." \NAnd it was absolutely, absolutely perfect
Dialogue: 0,0:08:13.02,0:08:21.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for that show because it gave "Vertigo Sea" \Na kind of godparent.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:22.86,0:08:24.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It felt to me important
Dialogue: 0,0:08:24.56,0:08:30.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that you had different voices to represent \Nthe ways in which disasters come at sea.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:32.45,0:08:34.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,♪soft ominous synths♪
Dialogue: 0,0:08:49.28,0:08:55.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The shift to making "Purple" was out \Nof the desire to find a way of fusing
Dialogue: 0,0:08:55.13,0:08:58.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,autobiography and historical insights together.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:09.90,0:09:13.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,If you live as I did, in London in the 60's,
Dialogue: 0,0:09:13.80,0:09:20.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,no one ever mentioned the fact that living \Nunderneath a power station, which pumped a
Dialogue: 0,0:09:20.01,0:09:26.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,million ton of carbon dioxide into the air may \Nhave an adverse effect on your life. Never.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:30.12,0:09:35.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Battersea Power Station was working at the \Ntime of the Cuban revolution, and continued
Dialogue: 0,0:09:35.34,0:09:41.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to work by the time Nkrumah was overthrown \Nin Ghana in '66. It was poisoning me during
Dialogue: 0,0:09:41.28,0:09:46.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the March on Washington. You know, all of these \Nthings were happening at exactly the same time.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:50.12,0:09:56.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There's no causality between the March on Washington and my poisoning as a teenager.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:56.44,0:09:59.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But, the connective tissue is me.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:59.74,0:10:02.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I lived through this, I experienced this.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:05.16,0:10:12.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And so, by implication I am this weird \Nproduct of these disparate elements.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:13.17,0:10:16.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Man] In the sky, those gasses \Nare partially converted to
Dialogue: 0,0:10:16.48,0:10:18.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,sulfuric and nitric acids.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:18.72,0:10:19.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,♪soft piano♪
Dialogue: 0,0:10:22.05,0:10:27.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[John] It's not true that children don't know when seismic political events take place, they do.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:27.20,0:10:29.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Uh, you felt it palpably.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:30.84,0:10:34.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I remember it very clearly that things \Nhad changed in Ghana.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:36.85,0:10:39.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'm of Ghanaian heritage.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:40.26,0:10:46.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,My mom was a member of the ruling party \Nthat took Ghana to independence in '57.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:47.65,0:10:53.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The military coup in '66 pretty much \Nmeant that we had to leave Ghana,
Dialogue: 0,0:10:54.30,0:10:59.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because coups are a bit like death when \Nthey come. It wipes out everything.
Dialogue: 0,0:11:01.98,0:11:10.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I was very, very happy to come here. And for a \Ngood decade, this literally was paradise for me.
Dialogue: 0,0:11:23.64,0:11:29.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Four Nocturnes" was my contribution to \Nthe Ghana Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
Dialogue: 0,0:11:32.88,0:11:37.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The brief was do something on Ghana freedom.
Dialogue: 0,0:11:51.18,0:11:58.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Global warming is affecting Africans. \NEveryone on the continent is suffering.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:04.62,0:12:10.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Whenever you're looking at an image of \Na young person walking across a desert,
Dialogue: 0,0:12:11.34,0:12:18.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it's also worth considering on the screen left \Nand right, that that desert is not history free.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:27.54,0:12:34.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So many young African migrants were drowned, \Nin the thousands at sea five, six years ago.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:36.48,0:12:39.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,All of those lives were saying, "Come \Non man, you could have been one of us."
Dialogue: 0,0:12:40.50,0:12:44.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So if you're not one of us, what are you \Ndoing to tell people about who we are?"
Dialogue: 0,0:12:58.20,0:13:02.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Once you've understood that \Nyou are a product of things,
Dialogue: 0,0:13:03.42,0:13:06.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you can't shake off realizing \Nthat from across your life.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:08.10,0:13:11.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Dread Scott] Those who wish to\Ndie free, rise with me!
Dialogue: 0,0:13:11.16,0:13:14.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[cheering]
Dialogue: 0,0:13:14.53,0:13:16.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Onto New Orleans!
Dialogue: 0,0:13:25.20,0:13:30.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[John] The artist Dread Scott decided \Nthat he would organize the 1811
Dialogue: 0,0:13:30.48,0:13:36.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,slavery rebellion reenactment as \Na march, as a way of honoring the event.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:38.76,0:13:43.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I have known Dread for the last 15 years.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:43.32,0:13:45.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Generally friends or allies ask me to do
Dialogue: 0,0:13:45.48,0:13:51.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,something, I would if I can. And, I got involved \Nbecause he asked as an act of solidarity.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:54.12,0:13:58.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,If it looks like they're going to go too far \Nthat way, just gently bring it across. Okay.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:59.58,0:14:03.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Let's roll on this now, because \NI can see them in the distance.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:06.36,0:14:12.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's a huge African diasporic event \Nthat could have conceivably changed the
Dialogue: 0,0:14:12.69,0:14:15.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,entire history of enslavement across the Americas.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:17.40,0:14:25.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We will now spend probably the next seven \Nmonths, Lara and I, trying to find a narrative
Dialogue: 0,0:14:25.68,0:14:32.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,order to the material that we shot over the \Ntwo, three days. And then, we'll begin to add
Dialogue: 0,0:14:32.40,0:14:34.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,some of this stuff to it.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:35.38,0:14:40.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'd like it to call on \Nother events to help it make sense in the present.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:43.20,0:14:49.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,If you ever see me in the field shooting, there \Nwould usually be my long-time collaborator
Dialogue: 0,0:14:49.10,0:14:52.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,David Lawson. My partner, Lina, who \Nhas also a member of the collective,
Dialogue: 0,0:14:53.10,0:14:58.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and my son Ashitey who is now working with us. \NAnd between us, we shepherd each project through.
Dialogue: 0,0:15:05.52,0:15:12.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The sense of belonging isn't some abstract ideal \NBritishness or Englishness or even a Londonness.
Dialogue: 0,0:15:13.51,0:15:21.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's very concrete, specific things. You make a \Nspace in a corner of it that you're comfortable with,
Dialogue: 0,0:15:21.25,0:15:28.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,with a bunch of your mates, and that's your \NEngland, that's your Britain, that's your London.