Tag: institutional racism

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Features Live Action Movies

The Goldman Case
(Le Procès Goldman)

Director – Cédric Kahn – 2023 – France – Cert. 12a – 115m

****

An acerbic, left-wing revolutionary in the dock protests his innocence on counts of murder he claims he did not commit – true life, courtroom drama is out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, September 20th

Before this courtroom drama, which is based on an actual trial in 1975 concerning incidents in 1969 and 1970, gets fully under way, and after a brief title card explaining that left wing Jew Pierre Goldman (Arieh Worthalter from Girl, Lukas Dhont, 2018) was imprisoned on four counts of robbery, but insists that he’s not guilty of causing the two deaths in the pharmacy incident, and that a retrial is pending, two of his defence lawyers meet in an office to discuss his decision to drop one of them, M. Kiejman (Arthur Harari from Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet, 2023; Onoda: 10, 000 Nights in the Jungle, Arthur Harari, 2021), something neither of the defence lawyers want. Clearly, M. Goldman is a difficult client.

After people arrive in a courtroom thronging with photographers, Goldman is led into the dock, and is immediately met with shouts of “Goldman, innocent” from his supporters.… Read the rest

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies Music

Getting It Back:
The Story of Cymande

Director – Tim MacKenzie-Smith – 2022 – UK – Cert. 12a – 90m

****

How a promising, innovative black 1970s band failed to crack the UK music business, only for their music to take on a life of its own through various later, popular musical movements – out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 16th and out on BFI Blu-ray, BFI Player Subscription, iTunes and Amazon Prime on Monday, 26 February

Film critics have their blind spots (there are films you’d assume I’ve seen which I never have) and so too do serious music listeners, among whom I number myself. Prior to this film, I had never heard of Cymande. That’s surprising to me, actually, because I started seriously listening to music in the 1970s and have never stopped (although, significantly, rap and hip-hop, which came later, never really did it for me). And Cymande, it turns out, were a band of the early 1970s. It’s not mentioned in this film, but they played a couple of sessions for legendary UK Radio One DJ John Peel where it’s likely I would have heard them, had I started listening regularly to his show earlier than 1974, after they recorded a session.

The narrative in MacKenzie-Smith’s documentary runs something like this: in the 1950s and 60s, Britain invited numerous Commonwealth citizens from Caribbean islands like Jamaica, St.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Shorta
(US: Enforcement)

Directors – Anders Ølholm, Frederik Louis Hviid – 2020 – Denmark – Cert. 15 – 108m

****

As racial tensions simmer, two white cops become trapped on a vast, no-go housing estate – out in cinemas and on digital from Friday, September 3rd

‘Shorta’ is Arabic slang for ‘police’. An Arab suspect is interrogated and beaten in a Danish police cell, resulting in his hospitalisation. The story is all over the TV news. With tensions running high, and set to run even higher should the questioned man die as seems highly likely, the police are instructed not to enter the area of Svalegarden, a vast housing estate where many Arabs live.

With two officers under investigation for the treatment of the suspect, Jens Høyer (Simon Sears) is partnered with their trigger-happy buddy Mike Andersen (Jacob Hauberg Lohmann) with instructions from the captain to keep Mike on a leash during these difficult circumstances. In the course of their eight-hour shift, they pursue a car with Arab occupants which leads them into the forbidden Svalegarden estate, where after hassling the car’s occupants and getting nowhere, Mike pulls over a teenage boy Amos (Tarak Zayat) for no reason other than the colour of his skin and the way he looks at them.… Read the rest