How film­mak­ers are high­light­ing racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in the crim­i­nal jus­tice system

Three stand­out films at this year’s BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val deal with the top­ic of racism in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem: Steve McQueen’s Man­grove, Gar­rett Bradley’s Time and Ken Fero’s Ultraviolence.

These works feel more time­ly than ever with the resur­gence of a glob­al Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment fol­low­ing the killings of Bre­on­na Tay­lor and George Floyd in Amer­i­ca ear­li­er this year. Their deaths shone a spot­light on the issue of racist polic­ing and its fatal con­se­quences spark­ing protests world­wide. The Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment has thrown into ques­tion the pur­pose of the police and the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem as a whole, giv­ing rise to dis­cus­sions of prison abolition.

The cam­paign against state vio­lence is show­ing no signs of slow­ing down; more recent­ly protests have erupt­ed in Nige­ria as part of the #End­SARS move­ment to stop the vio­lence, extor­tion and harass­ment car­ried out by the Spe­cial Anti-Rob­bery Squad.

Man­grove, McQueen’s inter­pre­ta­tion of the real-life case of the Man­grove Nine, opened the fes­ti­val, giv­ing this long-over­looked moment in Black British his­to­ry the atten­tion it deserves. The first instal­la­tion of his high­ly antic­i­pat­ed Small Axe anthol­o­gy series, the film tells the true sto­ry of The Man­grove – a leg­endary Caribbean restau­rant in Not­ting Hill, which was opened in 1968 and tar­get­ed by the police with a relent­less cam­paign to shut it down.

When protests against this racist polic­ing turned vio­lent, nine peo­ple were arrest­ed and charged with incite­ment to riot and affray. They were tried at the Old Bai­ley, includ­ing the Mangrove’s own­er Frank Crichlow (Shaun Parkes), racial jus­tice cam­paign­er Dar­cus Howe (Malachi Kir­by), and leader of the British Black Pan­ther Move­ment Altheia Jones-Lecointe (Leti­tia Wright).

The film is not only com­pelling, but it also pro­vides a much-need­ed les­son in Black British his­to­ry and civ­il rights. Show­ing that (con­trary to the Black His­to­ry Month syl­labus cur­rent­ly taught in schools) there is a wealth of his­to­ry to be explored in the UK beyond the life of Vic­to­ri­an nurse Mary Sea­cole. As Dar­cus Howe says in his clos­ing state­ment at the Man­grove tri­al, this was a moment we should all remem­ber –(“…the his­to­ry of Britain can­not be writ­ten with­out it”) and almost 50 years lat­er McQueen has made sure of this; the Man­grove Nine’s pio­neer­ing activism has not been forgotten.

At the Black Lives Mat­ter protests which swept the UK this sum­mer peo­ple chant­ed the names of George Floyd, Bre­on­na Tay­lor and Ahmaud Arbery. You were less like­ly to hear the names of British vic­tims of police bru­tal­i­ty: Joy Gard­ner (1993), Trevor Smith (2019), Paul Cok­er (2005), Sarah Reed (2016) and Christo­pher Alder (1998), to name but a few.

Rad­i­cal film­mak­ing col­lec­tive Migrant Media’s deeply unset­tling doc­u­men­tary Ultra­vi­o­lence calls atten­tion to the prob­lem of vio­lent and racist polic­ing in the UK, show­ing defin­i­tive­ly that it is not just an Amer­i­can issue. Direc­tor Ken Fero says he hopes the film will make peo­ple acknowl­edge the uncom­fort­able truths of racism in Britain: ​“Most films are just a way of for­get­ting, and we want to make films that make peo­ple remember.”

Ultra­vi­o­lence, the fol­low up to 2001’s Injus­tice which the police tried and failed to sup­press, pro­vides an unflinch­ing look into six fatal police bru­tal­i­ty cas­es in the UK. The film presents some of these deaths in excru­ci­at­ing detail, includ­ing show­ing extreme­ly upset­ting CCTV footage of Christo­pher Alder and Paul Cok­er in their final moments. Fero has defend­ed the deci­sion to include this footage, as he fol­lowed the wish­es of the fam­i­lies who want­ed this to be seen. He says his aim is for audi­ences to ​“keep the mem­o­ry of these cas­es. I hope they feel angry, but they also want to turn that anger into action.”

The impact of mass incar­cer­a­tion, which sees Black peo­ple impris­oned at dis­pro­por­tion­ate rates, is exam­ined in Gar­rett Bradley’s heart-wrench­ing doc­u­men­tary Time. The film fol­lows Fox Rich, a woman on a mis­sion to get her hus­band Rob out of prison and bring him home to her and their six sons. Rob is serv­ing a 60-year sen­tence with no parole for a botched bank rob­bery – almost unheard of for a crime of this nature – while Fox served three and a half years for dri­ving the get­away car.

Util­is­ing decades worth of home videos, as well as orig­i­nal footage, Time paints a beau­ti­ful­ly intri­cate por­trait of a fam­i­ly kept apart by incar­cer­a­tion. It explores the more sub­tle vio­lence of sep­a­ra­tion; of a cold and bureau­crat­ic crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem which fails to appre­ci­ate the human­i­ty of pris­on­ers and those who love them.

Rich is a vocal prison abo­li­tion­ist, mak­ing links between slav­ery and mass incar­cer­a­tion in pri­vate pris­ons which turn a prof­it. She presents com­pelling argu­ments for a com­plete over­haul of the Amer­i­can crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, which focus­es so pure­ly on ret­ri­bu­tion, over­look­ing much of the harm caused by crime and ulti­mate­ly doing lit­tle to repair it.

Whilst it is good to see these issues being giv­en space with­in the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val pro­gramme this year, this must con­tin­ue beyond the events of 2020. Fero stress­es the impor­tance of mak­ing sure these top­ics aren’t just engaged with as a result of cur­rent trends: ​“It’s real­ly good the BFI are doing this, and let’s hope it’s done again, and again, and again. Not just this year, it needs to be con­stant, then things might change.”