The British Film Institute (BFI) plans a redundancy that would end the 17-year-old African Odysseys programme. Sign the petition to save it HERE
African Odysseys was set up in 2007 by Black community activists who were already showing films at various London venues. The idea was to give a singular home to those films, advise and help the BFI show African diaspora content and bring an underserved Black audience to the venue. The African Odysseys Steering Committee, a voluntary group, researches and suggests films/themes, advises on guests/scheduling, develops audiences and uses their community networks to advertise and promote Black films at the Southbank.
The programme was co-founded by Tony Warner from Black History Walks and David Somerset of the BFI. It has been a phenomenal success, bringing tens of thousands of new people to the BFI and greatly improved its reputation amongst the Black community. Before then brilliant directors like Menelik Shabbaz had problems getting his films shown there and many Black people did not know where the BFI Southbank was.
The programme runs at least once a month but often has multiple screenings/seasons like Ousmane Sembene, Horace Ove, Raoul Peck and Black and Banned. It also hosts talks and workshops on topics like Black Cowboys, the Harlem Renaissance, deaths in custody, African Spirituality, Aboriginal civil rights, Kenyan concentration camps and classical composers. In association with US film studio owner Tim Reid, the programme offered subsidised training for young filmmakers.
AO is a unique grassroots and institutional collaboration that screens educational and anti-racist films. There is nothing like it in Europe. It has a fantastic almost 20-year track record of great events, informative Q&A and packed houses of up to 450 people.
However, in June 2024 the Steering Committee learned that the Education/Film Programmer, Adult Community role held by Somerset, who has curated and championed the AO programme for 17 years, would be made redundant. The BFI’s sudden decision to delete the post would end the programme.
This was a surprise because on 29 August 2023 the Steering Committee had met with senior management who agreed, amongst other things, to start planning for the 20-year anniversary of African Odysseys in 2026, to include over 100 AO titles to the online BFI iPlayer and make it reflect the decades of AO films, address the exclusion of AO from the BFI magazine, Sight and Sound, and provide more resources.
That meeting was a result of two previous protest letters from the Steering Committee about poor treatment of African Odysseys. The first letter was sent to CEO Ben Roberts on 23rd June 2020 and a follow-up letter was sent on 5th May 2023 as there had been little improvement. For example, Sight and Sound has never done a feature on African Odysseys or interviewed any of the committee despite consistent full houses, unique films and outstanding events like the Terry Jervis story, Black Lives Matter season, the Darcus Howe Black British Civil Rights series or Black Women in Broadcast Journalism.
While AO Steering Committee were communicating their grievances, the BFI was in the news for systemic racism as reported by Rachel Hall in the Guardian on 27th March 2023 and by Jake Kanter in Deadline on the same day. The BFI still has a predominantly white management structure which recently underwent diversity training.
The decision to delete the post came as a complete shock and was taken without consultation with the AO committee. According to the BFI, the proposed deletion is to ‘save money and promote diversity’.
The committee raised several concerns about the implications of this decision, including:
· The absence of a dedicated individual to oversee the 48 weeks of work required to maintain AO.
· The potential loss of 17 years of experience curating African diaspora film.
· The detrimental impact on the loyal Black audience cultivated through years of outreach.
· The decision seemed illogical from both a cost-saving and diversity perspective, as expert consultation, marketing, and promotion had been provided at no cost, consistently attracting diverse, full-capacity audiences in all three cinemas.
The BFI said that they highly valued African Odysseys and considered it integral to their work. However, they could not explain how AO would continue without this role, nor the contradiction between what was said at the meeting of August 2023 and this 2024 position.
Despite being involved in racial scandals last year the BFI had not considered doing a Race Equality Impact Assessment as part of this process.
When the Steering Committee met with BFI management on 2nd July, they argued that a REIA was essential. This was agreed but two weeks later the BFI said they did not think ‘race was an issue’ in the decision, therefore a REIA was not necessary. The Committee disagreed and was told ‘no progress was being made’ but the BFI would pick the topic up in November. Requests for a breakdown of permanent staff by race, rank and time in post at Sight and Sound among other statistics were ignored.
In the week of 16th September, the committee learned that the redundancy was going ahead, and the post would end within three months.
This should not be happening at a taxpayer-funded institution dedicated to preserving film history barely two months after racist riots and just before Black History Month.
A rare film on legendary Jamaican poet/novelist, Claude McKay, will soon be screened following an equally rare film ‘Who in da Morning’ about Junkanoo, neither of which has been shown anywhere in the country. These types of films plus Q&As would no longer happen if the post is deleted.
AO put BFI on the global map as a monthly home, outside of annual festivals, for films like Walter Rodney, Toussaint L’Ouverture, Forward Ever Grenada, Errol Barrow Freedom fighter. Kalushi, Besouro, the Marcus Garvey story and Once upon a time when we were Coloured, giving Black filmmakers and audiences frequent access to a mainstream venue.
We call upon the BFI to immediately reverse this decision to prevent a catastrophic loss of Black history archive and cause immense, ongoing damage to community relations.
Terry Jervis
Dame Professor Elizabeth Anionwu
Kingslee Daley
Adjoah Andoh
Margaret Busby CBE
Mia Morris OBE
Paul Gilroy
Dr Patrick Vernon OBE
Professor Gus John
Charles Thompson MBE
Indra Ove
Courttia Newland
Rudolph Walker
Clarke Peters
Bishop Rosemarie Mallett
Imruh Bakari
Yvonne Field OBE