More evidence of BFI discrimination against African Odysseys: 2020, George Floyd

There will be a face-to-face public update on the campaign on Friday 6th November  HERE and the amazing Eyes of Ghana plus Q& A will be shown on 14th November HERE

Please find below additional BFI documentation, this time  from 2020, showing exactly how white senior management made numerous agreements/promises on Black film to Black people and then consistently failed to honour what they agreed. A history of  undermining and calculated racial discrimination since 2007 is the background to the situation where the BFI is trying to ignore the wishes of almost 20,000 people while simultaneously stating ;

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. BFI CEO Ben Roberts June 2020 HERE

The contradictions are self evident.

Thanks  very much for signing and sharing the petition/updates. In August 2024 about 15 people knew about the BFI’s disgraceful treatment of Black film audiences and African Odysseys. When the petition was launched in September 2024, due to the BFI refusing to even to talk to the loyal volunteers who had curated the monthly programme since 2007, the BFI response was not to have ‘uncomfortable conversations’, but to shut the petition down as reported in Deadline 26 March 2025 .  In 2026 almost 20,000 people are aware and there will soon be a podcast on the issue to further expose the extensive malpractice.

For example, fully three weeks after the last petition update the BFI has no response to the simple request to tell the general public who the two ‘anti-racist champions’  are. BFI Chair of governors Jay Hunt announced these roles in Parliament on 28th January 2025 as  can be seen  HERE

Two whole years later, in the midst of the biggest race scandal the BFI has ever seen, the BFI can provide no  evidence of these ‘champions’ even when asked for by thousands of people.  What is the point of ‘champions’ no one can access? If these champions exist what 'anti-racist' actions have they done?

It would seem that the BFI has misled hundreds of thousands of their own subscribers for two years in order to distract  from the racism  in the Faisal Querishi  and African Odysseys cases HERE 

To get up to speed on the entire campaign check out these most recent posts:

14 October 2026. Ava DuVernay, London Film Festival, BFI deceit : African Odysseys HERE

24th September 2026 : BFI called out for lying to the public. Two examples HERE

10th September 2026 : 9 Examples of Racism @BFI Southbank  HERE

26th August 2026 : Black Professors ignored but dogs heard at Picturehouse  HERE

8th August 2026 :  What's the link between African Odysseys and Sky TVs hit show Possession ? HERE

11th July 2026 Evidence @BFI betrayed 20 years of African Odysseys . Management 2023 promises broken HERE

African Odysseys now presents further evidence of the BFI’s duplicity in the form of an email dated  6th October 2020 from senior manager Stuart Brown to David Somerset (co-founder of African Odysseys) and the volunteer Steering Committee. This was as a result of a letter to Ben Roberts sent on 23rd June 2020 challenging exclusionary behaviours that had been complained about verbally  for years  with no action. For context George Floyd was killed on May 25th 2020.  Robert’s took  3 months to reply. This email from Stuart Brown is part of that  delayed response.

NB: Please note this email was sent 3 years before the 2023 agreement by the same Stuart Brown, to host a 20th anniversary season of African Odysseys at BFI in 2026.  This promise  BFI also failed to honour by cancelling the programme with no consultation in 2025 against the wishes of almost 20,000 people and in breach of their own policies and equality law while refusing to meet the volunteer curators who poured £6 million of labour/consultancy into the registered charity.

Also note where Brown states ‘response in red’ the responses are in bold due to this platform’s settings

Stuart Brown <redacted> 6/10/2020 18:36 Notes from African Odysseys meeting 6/10/20 To  <redacted>

Hi all,

David, I cannot find <redacted’s> email address, could you please loop him in by reply.

Good to see you all and finally to address points raised in letter to Ben from some months ago.

Herewith some basic notes from meeting, actions in red .  Please do flag anything that you feel I have missed out:

·         BFI Player AO collection – yes, we need to make a plan, David, Stuart and AO

·         Black Panther Event for future Event with AO context – 2 year on from original release will be February 2021. Could also be tribute to Chadwick Boseman – could we programme some other CB films alongside?  

·         Meeting to discuss forward programming in real life.  Charlotte, this is for post LFF

·         Previews - yes for some films but we can’t agree to exclusivity, we work with multiple partners.

·         Review of strand + activity, with a view to ascertaining the strength of the brand - establish metrics of the reach of AO (external to BFI), so that we have powerful pitch to distributors.  David and AO, Stuart and Tim <redacted>

·         Knowledge - important to capture and archive AO presentations to date, David with some support, also book as mentioned by Tony

·         National Tour - Yes, we support.  Need to explore lottery funding potential.  David, Stuart, AO

·         Capturing events.  Complicated.  Internal resource issue and politics.  But yes agree, also might be the case that we create online events and programme them in venue - as per Injustice season.

·         Sight and Sound - yes, but won’t be a guaranteed word count.  Heather to connect AO to Mike Williams

·         Earl Cameron programme – ideally for March, potentially similar scale to Injustice (but maybe just one event).

·         Heather to send list of Black British film for Player collection

I hope that covers it

Best wishes

Stuart Brown ||  Head of Programme and Acquisitions

BFI

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx end of email

These  issues raised verbally from before 2020 had still not been actioned up to 2025 . There was no action on BFI Player even though African Odysseys  did 6 months of painstaking research and submitted over  140 titles to BFI, nothing happened. No book to document the history  of the series ever happened.

The second Black Panther event also never happened. In 2017 African Odysseys had twice suggested having a screening  of the first Black Panther (2018) at BFI Southbank. The BFI refused twice.

 The committee could not understand why, with a 13 year  track record of filling the 450 seater, this overture was rejected. It made no sense. African Odysseys  had championed Ryan Cooglers work since Fruitvale Station (2013)  about the 2009 police killing of Oscar Grant in California . African Odysseys had always highlighted police killings in the UK at the Southbank including: Sean Rigg, Mark Duggan, Ibrahima Sey, Colin Douglas and others, via the films of Ken Fero and the actions of the United Friends and Family  Campaign. The fact that this director was now coming with a superhero film was a no brainer for the massive global majority audience AOhad curated over decades. An audience that did not go to BFI prior to African Odysseys.

Rejected by the BFI, African Odysseys took the programme to the 750 seat Genesis Cinema, had three screenings on one day and brought 2000 people out of their houses as can be seen HERE. Surprisingly after this screening was announced in December 2017,  the   BFI announced a Black Panther screening   in 2018 and paid We Are Parable to host it.

When African Odysseys asked Brown/Roberts to explain this contradiction and obvious slap in the face, bearing in mind the African Odysseys volunteers did not charge for their services or get a cut of the box office , Brown/Roberts after months of ‘investigating’ could not explain how this happened. However, We Are Parables website as of 6.11.26 states the BFI approached them HERE  Someone is not telling the truth

This also highlights the kind of money generated by African Odysseys for BFI since 2007. Over £20,000 and 2000 people  went to Genesis that could have gone the BFI charity but for their bizarre behaviour. The BFI event had a Q&A with director Ryan Coogler but none of the Steering Committee were invited to the event that they had proposed to the BFI  in the first place.

Sight and Sound edited by Mike Williams, has never done a feature on African Odysseys despite 20 years of verbal and written complaints and three official letters to  BFI CEO Ben Roberts. This is clearly deliberate exclusion from the top and undermines all the Black talent that African Odysseys bought to  Southbank since 2007. That Black talent did not get their fair share of credit and publicity as BFI blocked it. 

African Odysseys film submissions were also being repeatedly blocked from the annual London Film Festival, (LFF)  again suppressing Black talent.

BFI carried on failing to film African Odyssey events. David Somerset’s brother had to continually be roped in to do it for free using his own equipment.

BFI  never came up with any lottery funding for national tour which AO had been asking for since before  2010. African Odysseys had  planned a national tour as part of the 20th anniversary but of course that could not be done as BFI cancelled the programme  by getting rid of David Somerset and deleting his post.

Interestingly in 2025  BFI Audience Projects Fund gave 80,000 to We Are Parable for a national film screening series. HERE

 In 2024 BFI told African Odysseys that there was  ‘no money’ for the programme even though curators were all voluntary and had put £6 million of work into the BFI and BFI kept 100% of monthly box office profits since 2007. Many events were sold out due in advance due to the tens of thousands of diverse audiences brought to the BFI by African Odysseys.

BFI  broke every single promise. Further evidence  of racist treatment will be revealed via further documentation/announcements next week. Please share this on social media.