Presented by the Department of Film & Media at Queen’s University and The Cinema Society of Kingston, and hosted by Brandon Hocura.
Admission is FREE and all are welcome to attend.
Edward George, founding member of the influential Black Audio Film Collective, will join us in person for a very special presentation of the group’s seldom seen feature from 1991, Who Needs A Heart, which he co-wrote. Exploring the social impact of controversial British-Trinidadian activist Michael X, the hybridized film combines fiction and documentary with a capacious soundtrack of soul, jazz, and blues resulting in an existential, expressionist journey into the fledgling moments of Black radicalism in late twentieth century Britain.
About the Film
Who Needs A Heart is a series of micro narratives through which we follow the lives of a group of friends and lovers between 1965 and 1975. A record of life on the fringes, the film explores the forgotten history of the British Black Power Movement through the fictional lives of a group of friends caught up in the metamorphoses of the movement’s central figure; the counter-cultural anti-hero, activist and charismatic social bandit Michael Abdul Malik.
Narrative has been replaced by a collage of fragments and a hallucinatory soundtrack – both of which work together to present a vivid description of the social scene through which the Black Power Movement flowed, and the emotional and psychological consequences for the young people caught up in it.
Guest Biography
Edward George is a writer and broadcaster. Founder of Black Audio Film Collective, George wrote and presented the ground-breaking science fiction documentary Last Angel of History (1996). George is part of the multimedia duo Flow Motion, and the electronic music group Hallucinator. He hosts Sound of Music (Threads Radio), Kuduro – Electronic Music of Angola (Counterflows). George’s series The Strangeness of Dub (Morley Radio) dives into reggae, dub, versions and versioning, drawing on critical theory, social history, and a deep and wide cross-genre musical selection. Edward George lives and works in London.
| Series | |
| Genre |
Experimental Cinema
|
| Runtime | 78 minutes |
| Rated | Not Rated |
| Directed By | John Akomfrah / co-written by Edward George |
| Starring | Valentine Nonyela, Cassie McFarlane, Norman Beaton, and Tania Rogers |
| Language | English |
| Country |
UK
|
