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Up to January 2025 African Odysseys films  @BFI sold out in advance. Presently the BFI is dishing out free tickets to various groups to see its films about a Black woman surviving white Hollywood while not addressing the absence of Black women from the 15 BFI governors, or why there is only one Black woman on the 88% white executive team, five whole years after George Floyd (2020) when there were no Black people at all.

This quote is very telling:

You can’t make change without data, but data is not the answer. It’s about resource. Everybody from top to bottom has to get on board. There’s been a lot of reacting in this moment, but I’m interested in what we look like in a year, in five years. It’s not about hiring one person over here and thinking you’re done.

This comment was made in BFI's Sight and Sound magazine edited by Mike Williams

NB Sight and Sound, in 17  years, has never done a feature on African Odysseys many sold out events. See video HERE 

 The above comment in Sight and Sound was made five years ago in 2020, the year of George Floyd. It was made by Melanie Hoyes who is presently Director of Inclusion at the BFI

There will be a film and lecture on the African Odysseys petition on Saturday 13th September 3pm details HERE

Legendary civil rights activist Professor Gus John, now 80 years old, will be hosting the three hour event. It will be a review of 60 years since the 1965 Race Relations Act (the first ever law to protect people from racial discrimination) with the BFI’s behaviour toward African Odysseys and the Black community used as a case study.

The event will include the film ‘60 years of Struggle’ which looks at education, housing, policing, health, migration and anti-racism. Followed by, a deep conversation with the iconic academic, author, activist. Topics include:

·       His journey from priest, to gravedigger to advising Home Secretary Jack Straw on the Stephen Lawrence response

·       Fighting for, then writing Race Relations laws,

·       20,000 and the Black People's day of Action 1981,

·       Saturday schools and state education

·       Deaths in custody and the 'sus' law

·       Racism, disrespect and neo-colonialism at the British Film Institute

 This Souleyman Garcia film plus Q&A with Professor Gary Younge, when first hosted by African Odysseys at BFI in 2015 had 2000 people chasing 450 tickets. You can see that Q&A here HERE

That rare and historical Q&A was filmed by Garcia as the BFI said they had 'no resources' to film it. The BFI has a budget of £127 million. Garcia is one of the many African Odysseys alumni who benefitted from the African Odysseys supporter Tim Reid. Reid ran the largest Black-owned film studio in the USA (long before Tyler Perry) and due to the African Odysseys programme, he would pay to bring his whole team to the Southbank to run subsidised training programmes for potential filmmakers and offer a scholarship.

This is but one example of the rich legacy the BFI discarded when they chose to make David Somerset redundant and delete his post against the wishes of 17,000 people and in breach of the Public Sector Equality duty of 2010 which demands an equality impact survey be done in advance of such actions to assess the impact on the service users.

Ironically, after having his film sell out the BFI 10 years ago, with hundreds of Black people trying to get in to a place that was alien to them prior to African Odysseys, the BFI dismissed Professor John's 60 years of equality law expertise when he offered it to them at no cost.

On 1st October 2024 Professor John wrote a 9 page open letter HERE explaining the history of Black film at the BFI and the importance of keeping African Odysseys, to BFI Governor Jay Hunt and CEO Ben Roberts. The BFI ignored his advice to run a Race Equality Impact Assessment as required by equality laws and rejected his offer of a meeting. On 17th January 2025 senior managers Stuart Brown and Jason Wood unilaterally cancelled a meeting with Professor John two hours before it was due to start HERE

Professor John helped write the equality laws and trains institutions on how to follow them, so why would BFI refuse his help? Ben Roberts on the 10th October 2024, 9 days after getting an offer of help from Professor Gus John, had to publicly apologise to filmmaker Faisal Querishi for how his race complaint was handled five years previous HERE

After one year of asking, the BFI still cannot tell the public who decided that the REIA did not apply to them, nor can they answer these 8 questions 

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?

The BFI also cannot explain why they are ignoring the 17,000 strong petition to keep the 17-year-old educational, anti-racist African Odysseys film programme . After being called out for untrue statements on 6th November 2024 HERE BFI has not responded to any of the 12 detailed and evidenced petition updates. These issues and more will be featured on the day as the racism at BFI is much worse than has been revealed so far. It is linked to the attacks on diversity in education at Bsix college, the censure of Diane Abbott MP and the sudden cancellation of Nadiya Hussein's BBC show which had consistent great ratings HERE

The film/talk will tour London and marks the start of the 20 year anniversary of African Odysseys. For details of the campaign against racism @BFI see the two 3 minute videos. Black Lives Matter 2020 compared to 2025

and 

17 years excluding African Odysseys from Sight and Sound

African Odysseys did not just show African diaspora films but platformed/showcased/trained new Black producers and directors who were previously kept out of BFI Southbank due to white privilege.

The BFI's cuts/redundancies to a series and a programmer that was selling out cinemas in advance, while cinemas like Odeon Camden Town are closing down, after 100 years, due to lack of audiences HERE makes no sense.

African Odysseys continues to screen films across London

·       Harry Belafonte

·       Bob Marley

·       Fearless Windrush Women

Free entry. Details HERE