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Here is a tiny sample of the value and cultural importance of the African Odysseys programme. These events were some of 13 planned for 2025 but were blocked by the BFI’s actions to cancel the popular, educational, anti-racist film series which started 17 years ago.
New Cross Fire/Massacre 44 years memorial: Screening and discussion on racist violence then and now
On 31st January 1981 a suspected racist arson attack on a house party full of Black teenagers resulted in the deaths of 14 young people. Mainstream media consistently ignores this anniversary.
Remembering Bob Marley: Making of a Legend, Esther Anderson, 2012
Timed for his birthday in February, a unique film by Bob’s movie star/director, ex-girlfriend. It sold out the 450-seater at BFI Southbank in 2011. Esther, who co-starred with Sidney Poitier, had been almost forgotten until African Odysseys put her back on stage. See the Q&A with Esther HERE
Malcolm X, his legacy: Malcolm’s Echo, Dami Akinissui, 2008
A rare British film by a female director on Malcolm X plus Q&A. Dami is one of the many Black directors African Odysseys highlighted, she can be seen on this 2008 panel discussing Goodbye Uncle Tom, an African Odysseys film the BFI did not want to show, HERE but had a 450 audience, discussing issues of race and slavery for over three hours.
Black People’s Day of Action, 44th anniversary film and Q&A: Blood Ah Go Run, Menelik Shabbaz, 1981
Prior to African Odysseys the BFI refused to screen Menelik's films. African Odysseys undid that discrimination and premiered several of his movies regularly filling out the 450-seater. ‘Blood Ah Go Run’ follows the 20,000 marchers from New Cross to Downing Street while they protest against racism. David Somerset who worked on every African Odysseys event since 2007, was on that march. No cinema in the country programmed anything like this event which is one of many reasons why African Odysseys is so important.
Deaths in Custody and Police Killings: Ultraviolence, Ken Fero, 2020
Revisiting George Floyd from a UK perspective. African Odysseys platformed Dr Ken Fero’s 40-year film career of forensic explorations of race, violence, migration and law enforcement. This would have been an update of his BFI appearance in 2020 as part of Black Lives Matter and tie into the present People’s Tribunal on Police Killings HERE
Comrade Tambo’s London Recruits, Gordon Main, 2024 : White Londoners go undercover in 1970s Apartheid South Africa to fight racism.
This amazing drama/documentary based on real events should have been in the 450-seater with a Q&A with the director and some of the surviving secret agents. It would have sold out. Watch trailer HERE
Those six events alone are unique, culturally priceless and would have brought diverse audiences and money to the BFI. Such events have been curated monthly for 17 years due to hundreds of thousands of hours of voluntary work by the loyal members of the Steering Committee. None of those events took place purely because the BFI removed the human and institutional infrastructure that was essential to produce such monthly events. When repeatedly asked as to how would the programme continue without any resources the BFI management had no answer and refused to meet. This is no way for a registered charity to treat Black film history, committed volunteers or the Black community they represent.
The cancellation is even more bizarre as it is a fact that cinema audiences are going down to the extent that cinemas are closing in 2025 as reported HERE
Meanwhile, African Odysseys titles sold out every month for the three months up to January, and they sold out in advance. No other BFI film programme was doing that. It makes a nonsense of the BFI’s claim that the cuts/redundancies to African Odysseys had to go ahead to ‘promote diversity and cut costs’.
On the 26th of March 2025 Screendaily magazine published an article headlined ‘BFI confirms African Odysseys on pause’ HERE
Quote from the article:
‘The British Film Institute (BFI)’s African Odysseys strand, created to show African diaspora content and bring an underserved Black audience into the BFI Southbank, has been put on hold, BFI CEO Ben Roberts confirmed today to Screen.
“We have not yet been able to agree on a shared approach to managing it [with the programme’s steering group],” Roberts explained.
End quote
This is very misleading. The BFI works at least 6 months in advance. The BFI knew there would be no African Odysseys films in February, March, April 2025 etc due to their cuts/redundancies as far back as October 2024.
The BFI senior management Stuart Brown, Jason Wood and Ben Roberts were explicitly and repeatedly told throughout 2024 that if they went ahead with their proposed cuts/redundancies it would end African Odysseys.
They were also explicitly told that to avoid a massive negative impact on the underserved Black audience, they should run a Race Equality Impact Assessment as required by law, policy, good practice and common sense. The petition to support African Odysseys was launched on 26 September only because the BFI refused to talk to the Steering Committee. They did not even communicate with the committee for 13 weeks including all of October.
Ben Roberts and the 88% white executive team, Jay Hunt and the majority white BFI governors, ignored all of the above evidence as to the value of African Odysseys. They ignored the advice of 20 race equality experts like: Professor Gus John, Professor Cecil Gutzmore, Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, Professor Paul Gilroy, Professor Imruh Bakari, Professor Patrick Vernon, Professor Deidre Osborne, Dr Margaret Busby, Dr Ken Fero and many more.
The BFI also ignored the advice of the Steering Committee who created African Odysseys in the first place. Stuart Brown, Jason Wood and Justin Johnson refused to meet with them, to the extent of cancelling meetings two hours before they were due to start on January 17th as reported HERE
The BFI refused to answer any of these 8 simple questions for 8 months HERE
Therefore with all of the above the phrase ‘we have not yet been able to agree on a shared approach’ is highly inappropriate.
Those six African Odysseys events were not ‘paused’, they were blocked from ever happening by senior BFI management who ignored the requests of 16,000 people and went ahead with making the only person at the BFI with 17 years knowledge of Black film redundant and deleting his 48 week work post entirely so the work could not continue. While other strands of diversity age, gender etc carry on at the BFI, African Odysseys has ceased to exist.
The disappearance of events like the above, without any public consultation, from an institution funded with taxpayer/public money, that only in October 2024 had to publicly apologise to Faisal Qureshi for race issues HERE is scandalous.
To resist this discriminatory behaviour, please share this update, the petition with three of your friends and/ or come to African Odysseys screenings outside of the BFI as listed here:
London Recruits HERE
Soundtrack to a Coup d’etat HERE
Reclaiming Cocoa HERE