PAY WHAT YOU CAN TICKETS
Suggested: £6.00 (£4.50 conc.)
Dir. Rubika Shah
Year. 2019
Country: Britain
Run-time: 85 mins
Rating: 15
Doors: 1.30pm Film: 2pm
10% discount on drinks. Just show your ticket at the bar.
White Riot: 45 Years ago watching Aswad, Stiff Little Fingers, Elvis Costello and Aswad in Brockwell Park at a Rock against Racism / Anti Nazi League gig, I had little idea that nearly half a century later people would still be talking about the movement behind it, let alone making films commemorating it. But Rubika Shah's documentary 'White Riot', using old footage and historical archive material has electrifyingly recaptured that era, and watching it again its contemporary relevance could not be more compelling.
The title is taken from the Clash single 'White Riot, but in truth it reflected a broad youth movement uniting many different strands of youth culture and music that were coalescing against the rise of hard right, racist and openly fascist political groups during the seventies. It was a time of political turbulence foretelling the grim Thatcherite and Reaganite reordering to come, that challenged notions of the prevailing 'inclusive' culture typified (whilst pretty illusionary in many respects) by the hippies of the 60's 'flower power' generation.
Punk music's spiky, angular and confrontational sound was matched increasingly with the dub heavy music of the emerging British reggae scene, providing a cross cultural basis for a youth movement that, to its followers, was both inspirational and unifying. Just around the corner, the first incendiary Brixton riots were still to come, and the question remains, both then and now. Did it make any difference, or was it just another example of counter cultural revolution that eventually went nowhere and achieved little? And as the title of the film might subtly imply, was this really only a riot orchestrated by a white and essentially bourgeois youth, or was it more than that? Either way, from the New Cross Fire to the events leading up to the formation of Black Lives Matter and all stops in between, the revival of far right, racist and fascistic hatreds and ideologies globally and politicians deliberately stoking cultural clashes and 'wars', this film brings new life to a series of urgent and critical debates, every bit as relevant now as they ever were then.
