Looking for Langston is Isaac Julien’s 1989 short film which combines archival footage of the Harlem Renessanice with scripted fictional scenes. It celebrates freedom of black gay culture during the 1920s in Harlem. I first came upon this film during my research into the black British film collectives that sprang up in Britain in the 1980s. The film collectives were born during a time of unrest in Britain. The rise of neo-fascism in the last years of the Labor government before Margaret Thatcher saw racially motivated attacks increase against both Afro-Caribbean and Asian people. Large gatherings of people of color were being portrayed in the press as threatening, turning Carnival into something that should be policed and feared. The Brixton riots of 1981, while not the first burst of violence against oppression in the country, lead to a string of disturbances that were co-opted by the media apparatus as part of this new narrative of Black Threat. In response to these incidents the Ethnic Minorities Committee was created in 1981, which housed within it the Black Arts Division created for the purposes of funding black cultural productions. The Association of Cinematograph Television & Allied Technicians, Britain’s film production union, at the same time instituted the Grant-Aided Workshop Production Declaration in 1981. They also had directed efforts into establishing Channel 4 to act as both a commissioner and outlet for British films. Channel 4 started broadcasting in 1982 and was government subsidized but funded from outside sources (including advertising and subscriptions) as well. These institutions were incredibly important in allowing the workshops to become franchised in the early 1980s and provided a platform for their voice. In 1986, Black Audio Film Collective’s Handsworth Songs and Sankofa Film/Video Collective’s The Passion of Remembrance both opened in London’s Metro Cinema. They were the first theatrical screenings for black film collectives, and served as a warning shot across the British independent landscape that things were about to change. Continue Reading…
