The petition is now at 15,832. Thanks very much for your support. Please continue sharing to your social media/contacts. HERE At a time when Black history is under attack in the US and UK, people need to take action. That action  leads to success as happened with Professor Hakim Adi versus Chichester university where his students won their case after their African history course was cancelled suddenly without consultation. Details HERE

Below are the 8 questions which have been asked many times since June 2024 about the cancellation of African Odysseys.  The BFI at the most senior level of CEO Ben Roberts and Governor Jay Hunt have refused to answer these simple queries up to 23 February 2025

1.            Who is responsible for the restructure?

2.            Who decided not to conduct a Race Equality Impact Assessment, and what are their qualifications? When was that decision made?

3.            Why does BFI Flare have eight times more staff than African Odysseys?

4.            Why has Flare received a BFI-produced trailer annually for 10 years, while African Odysseys has been denied one for 17 years?

5.            What is the budget for African Odysseys?

6.            What is the racial composition of BFI’s Sight & Sound staff by rank and length of service?

7.            Why has Sight & Sound excluded African Odysseys for 17 years despite its significance?

8.            Was ‘What If’ informed about the Steering Committee the 2020 and 2023 complaints of racial discrimination to CEO Ben Roberts when they were involved with diversity training of BFI staff?

Just under 16,000 people are asking, why would a publicly funded body with an 88% white executive management team that states it is ‘transparent’, refuse to answer such basic questions about a very popular 17-year-old Black film programme run by volunteers?

• If the cuts /redundancies are to save public money, why is it a secret what the African Odysseys budget is?
• The African Odysseys programme is run by volunteers, it is worth at least £1.5 million pounds, how is cancelling it ‘cutting costs and promoting diversity’?
• Is it fair that one strand of diversity has 8 staff while another strand has 1 or to be precise, since 31st January 2025, no staff at all?

In 2020 the CEO of the BFI Ben Roberts stated he was committed to ‘anti-racism’  HERE

In which case why would the BFI refuse to run a Race Equality Impact Assessment, which would reveal any racism, especially when asked to do so by tens of thousands of people? The BFI had to apologise for systemic  racism as recently as October 2024 in the five year-old-case of Faisal Querishi HERE

Since 2007 African Odysseys screened educational, anti-racist films which regularly sold out. These films were rarely screened anywhere else in the country. You can see 80 examples HERE  These are unique films that were typically not shown anywhere else in the country. The Steering Committee brought them, and a massive, under-served audience, to the BFI Southbank.

Here is a video clip of the types of topics African Odysseys covered; Black deaths in police custody. In this clip, activist Janet Alder speaks about her brother, army veteran Christopher Alder, who choked to death while half naked on the floor of Hull police station in 1998 HERE This is the type of  African Odysseys film and Q&A that has now been cancelled by the BFI.

In addition to not answering simple questions, the BFI is making public statements that are not true. The screenshot above was taken from the BFI website on 23rd February. The highlighted words say one thing but the truth is:

·       There are no African Odysseys on the BFI schedule for the rest of the year purely because of the cuts/redundancies the BFI has made due to ‘restructuring’.  

·       The BFI has shown no ‘commitment’ to African Odysseys as they have withdrawn 100% of the resources that made it possible since 2007.

·       The BFI have repeatedly ignored the advice of the expert Steering Committee that created and ran the programme as well as the requests of 16,000 people.

·       Since July 2007 the BFI could not even ‘commit’ to a meeting with the African Odysseys Steering Committee. The meeting agreed for the 17th of January was cancelled by the BFI two hours before it was due to go ahead without any consultation. Details HERE

·       The BFI could not ‘commit’ to answering 8 questions.

·       There is absolutely no discussion about a 20-year anniversary. The BFI were explicitly told in June 2024 there was no possibility of such without David Somerset, the co-founder being in post. However, CEO Ben Roberts CEO confirmed on 31st January that the BFI would not reverse the redundancy and Somerset the co-founder of African Odysseys, the only person at the BFI with 17 years of African diaspora film knowledge, no longer works there due to the 'restructure'.

This is the third time that the BFI has published information on its website about African Odysseys that is not true.

The first time was on 29th October as can be seen HERE

The second time was pointed out in our petition update of Christmas Eve 2024 as can be seen HERE

Given that the BFI has 825,000 followers on twitter and a budget of 127 million pounds, this deliberate disinformation is a form of bullying toward a small volunteer group that for 17 years has brought a diverse audience to the BFI and sold out their cinemas

Here is an extract from the six-page letter of complaint sent by the Committee to BFI Chair of Governors Jay Hunt and senior BFI managers on 21st January 2025

 We have argued from the outset that the cuts/redundancies would lead to the end of African Odysseys at the BFI and indeed AO does not appear in the present brochure. The 13 events we had lined up since October 2024 cannot go ahead while the BFI tells the public the exact opposite. The BFI appears to be totally unconcerned about the impact of such mismanagement on loyal supporters both of AO and of the BFI. Not only is it giving people false information, while betraying a total lack of transparency, it also appears to want to send a message that 'how we handle our affairs is our business and we have neither desire nor need to listen to anyone, irrespective of your 15,000 strong petition'…

...this debacle is a textbook case study of institutional racism, and your Board of Governors should be made aware of that. Given the support AO has received from 15,000 concerned individuals, a good many of whom consider themselves Friends of the BFI and are eager to see it do the right thing, AO owes it to them to represent this as an egregious case of institutional racism, especially given the history of the BFI and race.

End of extract

On the 19 February the Steering Committee sent an eight-page letter to CEO Ben Roberts and executive management member Jason Wood after they requested a meeting having twice refused to answer those 8 questions in order for a meeting to take place. Here is an extract:

(Jay) Hunt said the UK is “staring down the barrel of a crisis hitting cinemas.” She pointed out that 45% of British cinemas are projected to be loss-leading by the end of this year and quoted the local Film Distributor’s Association describing the situation as “parlous" HERE 

So how does it make sense to put the person who has been selling out BFI cinemas with majority Black audiences for 17 years out of the BFI? By the way, the audience you refer to is us, the Steering Committee. We had 13 other sells out, audience-grabbing events lined up for 2025, but your actions have frustrated them. The audience are also the 16,000 people who’ve signed the petition so far. You are not listening to that audience. 

Your actions have alienated the Steering Committee et al and gone against the wishes of 16,000 people. This is a spectacular own goal and a setback which will affect the audience and audience development negatively for years. Some people have already rescinded their membership, others will no longer attend the BFI. Many more have yet to find out what has gone on and will be furious when they do. Please indicate your related remedies to be discussed 

For five years and even more so in the last seven months, we’ve bent over backwards to accommodate you, make you money and solve your systemic racism problems. In return, we’ve been ignored, fobbed off, patronised, disrespected and had massive amounts of our precious time wasted. The BFI behaviour on the 16th/17th January 2025 alone is a national scandal for a registered charity. We put it to you that a group of White volunteers from Accenture/Campari/American Airlines would never have been treated in this manner even if they were not worth £1.5 million. 

We’ve previously raised the issue about BFI majority white executive team and experiencing their tone deafness to issues requiring change. Here’s a comparison which may help explain our perspective. To equal the devastation you’ve wrought on the most successful Black film programme the BFI  ever had  would be like making all 8 staff who work on Flare redundant at the same time and simultaneously deleting all of their posts,  after  refusing to do  an equality assessment as requested by leading members of the LGBTQ community and ignoring a 16,000 strong petition. After doing that you would then have to write to Peter Packer (the originator of what became Flare) and say you’d like to meet to ‘move forward’ with Flare because you care about that audience. Would the words ‘I think we’re actually doing a really good job?’ be appropriate in that situation? 

There are no African Odysseys titles scheduled in the calendar of BFI events for the rest of the year due to your actions while Flare will host at least 50 films in March alone. Once again, to quote James Baldwin ‘I can’t believe what you say because I see what you do’. Our last two emails were very clear about the criteria for a meeting and yet again you twice continue to ignore our very reasonable questions while alleging you are ‘transparent’ and want to ‘work with us’. 

At this late stage the community needs concrete, immediate action to combat the plethora of poor decisions, excessive delay and appalling treatment detailed in this petition and its various updates.

End of extract

If the BFI are serious about, and committed to, anti-racism, addressing systemic discrimination and resolving the many serious issues African Odysseys has raised since June 2020, the very least they can do is answer the eight questions above. The tax-paying public, who fund the BFI deserve to know as do the 16,000 people who took the time to sign the petition to Save 17 Years of Black Film History at the British Film Institute.