Dogs get film series but not African Odysseys @BFI. 18,500 people scorned

BFI CEO Ben Roberts recently gave a talk at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. He was in conversation with Clare Binns, Creative Director  at Picturehouse cinemas. HERE

Picturehouse has proudly hosted monthly, dog-friendly film screenings since 2018. Dogs get to sit on the chairs while watching Superman and Fantastic Four. The dogs needs are catered for;  lights are kept on, the volume is turned down and the 100/200 seat cinemas are kept half empty so the dogs have room to roam. Picturehouse even lays on extra cleaning to handle the fur and the poo HERE

Meanwhile at the British Film Institute, the 18,500 humans who have signed to keep the 20-year old, African Odysseys monthly, educational, Black history film screenings going, are being ignored and gaslit. The popular series, which regularly filled the 450 seat Southbank  with actual people, was ended with no public consultation by Roberts and his 88% white executive team. This is despite Stuart Brown, Head of Programme and Acquisitions,  2023 written commitment to an anniversary season of African Odysseys for 2026.  

Ben Roberts in 2020,  the year of George Floyd, wrote:

At the BFI, we are united against racism but we have not been actively antiracist. We know there are some longstanding and endemic issues within the organisation which can harm people and undermine our values. Whilst we are not alone in confronting this truth, it is crucial that we have uncomfortable conversations not just with each other, but also with those who have been marginalised or ignored  HERE

This is the total opposite to how African Odysseys has been treated. In this time of physical attacks on marginalised groups and Black professors being hounded to death, none of the above facts or BFIs broken promises on Black film were discussed in Edinburgh. The biggest race scandal in the BFIs history was not mentioned by the CEO of the body responsible for ensuring diversity in the British film industry. Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ was lauded  for its box office boost but Roberts was silent on ‘African Odysseys’ and its 20 years of making money for the BFI with Black film programming.

At Picturehouse, a private company, the needs of the dogs are taken into account and acted on. Space is set aside for them and money is allocated. The films the dogs wish to see are given priority and Picturehouse goes out of its way to respect the needs of four legged animals. However, the tax-payer funded British Film Institute charity , can find no space, no money, no consideration and no time to consult with  or cater for the 18,500 diverse humans  who support the  African/Caribbean film series which for decades filled all three of BFI's cinemas at 2pm on a Saturday. This, by the way, was achieved with no support from Sight and Sound, edited by Mike Williams, which never did a feature on the most successful Black film programme the BFI had ever seen. This, despite five years and three separate letters of complaint to Roberts  who took no action to stop the discrimination. The Guardian allocates  2242 words and 12 pictures to dogs compared to Sight and Sounds zero words for African Odysseys human curators.

This is unprecedented in UK cinema history, a national scandal and fundamentally racist by any measure. How can Roberts chitchat with Dunn about diversity in film with this travesty of his own construction going on for five years?

Picturehouse finds it economically viable to run half-empty cinemas for dogs 9 years in a row but BFI cancelled a 20-year-old successful Black history film series that regularly sold out 450 seats. According to Stuart Brown  this was done to ‘promote diversity and cut costs’. 

The diverse African |Odysseys steering committee who curated and consulted on the films are all volunteers.  According to the BFI’s own value system  they are worth £6 million HERE

However that figure  does not include box office. The curators did not get a share of the gate or any commission. If their curations filled the  Southbank’s 450 seat cinema at £10.00 a head the BFI got £4500.

That figure  also not include advertising. The Steering Committee used their considerable networks to access a diverse Black community that had never heard of the BFI. Sylviane Rano pulled her tens of thousands of Images of Black Women Film Festival followers to the BFI. Black History Walks brought their tens of thousands of followers from the Museum of London, Imperial Museum and National Portrait Gallery to the BFI Southbank. That is true audience development and was all voluntary.

African Odysseys volunteers were handing out BFI flyers at Peckham bus station, local libraries, old peoples homes and Saturday schools. Every Black History Walk for 20 years was used to promote African Odysseys  @BFI. The committee would even sponsor 50 seat coaches to bring pensioners from the Caribbean Social Forum  in Woolwich to the Southbank. All of this promotion was worth tens of thousands or pounds.

Roberts gushed over the talent. like Tom Holland that BFI money has supported but said nothing about the vast Black talent that African Odysseys put on screen. Jamaican Storm Saulter is now riding high with Possession on Sky TV  HERE but it was African Odysseys that gave him his first UK platform in 2011 with Better Mus Come . Frances Anne Solomon’s 2019 film Hero was championed by African Odysseys, got a full house, then went on a UK tour and got deals with Amazon and BBC. It was Sylviane Rano that first screened  Middle of Nowhere in 2012 by   Ava Duvernay when mainstream cinemas did not want films by and about Black women. They are many more such African Odysseys success stories that would have been highlighted at the BFI throughout 2026 but BFI broke their word and ended the programme without doing a legally required Race Equality Impact Assessment which had been agreed with Stuart Brown and Melanie Hoyes, the Head of Inclusion in July 2024.

The Steering Committee also brought sponsors worth hundreds of thousands of pounds to the BFI. Terry Jervis  HERE was introduced to the BFI in 2016 to help their Black Star programme. Jervis is presently producing with the  President Obama Foundation, the Royal Air Force, the Royal Mint and  Rolls Royce on media and Black history.

 Jervis has signed the petition as has Sir Professor Patrick Vernon, Dame Professor Elizabeth Aninonwu, Dr Margaret Busby, Akala, Clarke Peters, Hugh Quarshie, Courttia Newland, Professor Paul Gilroy Professor Matt Smith, Professor Gus John and 25 other professors. The BFI refused to meet Professor Gus John three times HERE. They also refused to meet Terry Jervis. Both experts were offering their services for free.

So how is it that in 2026 a handful of dogs at Picturehouse, a privately owned company are getting better treatment, consideration and money spent on them than the global majority humans whose taxes and lottery money pays for the £120 million BFI ?

African Odysseys which has zero public funds, continues to run events at smaller venues all over London

Coming African Odysseys events:

• 19th August 6.30pm at Black Cultural Archives. Judge Peter Herbert will discuss 60 years of Race Equality Laws and the BFI. 
• 26th August 6.30pm at Black Cultural Archives. Professor Gus John will discuss his life story and the BFI’s racism. Ironically this very event sold out the 450 seater at BFI in 2015
• 20th August  6.30pm at Bernie Grant Arts Centre. Story of Lovers Rock. Menelik Shabbaz film about romantic reggae which in 2012 also sold out the BFI which refused to show his films until African Odysseys came along.
• 4th September 6.30pm at Royal Holloway University. Frantz Fanon weekender

All event details on this link HERE

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