Film
Handsworth Songs
- Slow-burning
A fractured, layered essay film about the 1985 Handsworth riots that refuses straightforward reporting. Using archival footage, photographs, and poetic voiceover, it examines racism and economic collapse in Thatcher's Britain while questioning how documentary itself can tell the truth. Essential viewing for anyone interested in experimental cinema or British social history.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you want an essay film that argues with the archive itself, building meaning from newsreel, stills and home movies, and you're happy to let its voices and images accumulate rather than explain.
Skip it if you need a clear narrative or a single view of events, since this is fragmented, dense with argument, and can feel abstract and demanding even at an hour.
What it asks of you: Your attention for the whole hour, arriving with some knowledge of the 1980s and no expectation of being walked through it; the rhythm is fragmented, repetitive and deliberately unsettling.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
The Nightcleaners1975
A foundational experimental documentary about invisible labour and women's exploitation. Like Handsworth Songs, it combines archival material with formal innovation to make the invisible visible and challenge documentary conventions.
But Its pacing is deliberately slow and fragmented; there's no narrative arc or reassuring structure. Demands active, patient viewing.
The Battle of Algiers1966
A fierce, formally brilliant examination of colonialism, resistance and state violence that refuses easy moral positions. Shares Handsworth Songs' commitment to showing systemic oppression through layered, powerful filmmaking.
But Shot in black-and-white newsreel style, which some find austere. Its politics are unflinching and won't comfort you.
Harakiri1962
A devastating critique of institutional cruelty and systemic violence embedded in ritualistic form. Like Handsworth Songs, it excavates how power operates through custom and silence, using its medium brilliantly to reveal hidden brutality.
But It's a fictional samurai film, not a documentary, so the register shift might feel jarring. Demands patience with long, composed shots.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Handsworth Songs
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Daughters of the Dust1991
Both films use fragmented form and multiple voiceovers to excavate hidden histories of Black experience and resistance, refusing the authority of the single narrative voice.
Julie Dash's film about Gullah women at the turn of the century uses fractured chronology, voiceover, and lyrical visual language to explore diaspora, memory and cultural survival. Like Handsworth Songs, it privileges poetry and formal innovation over linear narrative, creating a documentary-like emotional truth.
But Non-linear storytelling will alienate viewers who need clarity. Its dreamlike pace and density of cultural reference demand repeated viewing.
More like this (6)
Sans Soleil1983
Chris Marker's lyrical essay film about memory, colonialism, and cinema itself. Like Handsworth Songs, it uses found footage, photographs, and voiceover to create a poetic meditation on history and representation.
But It's dreamlike and associative rather than argumentative; no clear through-line. Some find it beautiful; others find it impenetrably obscure.
Listen to Britain1942
Humphrey Jennings' poetic documentary using only sound and image, no voiceover, to capture wartime Britain. Echoes Handsworth Songs' interest in how documentary form itself shapes meaning and emotion.
But Only 20 minutes, and very dated in feel. Its romanticism about national spirit may feel distant from Handsworth Songs' anger and critique.
Stalker1979
Tarkovsky's meditative science-fiction film about desire, belief, and the unknowable. Like Handsworth Songs, it uses long takes and visual language to explore big social and philosophical questions through form rather than argument.
But It's glacially slow and philosophically obscure. Some will find it transcendent; others will find it pretentious and tedious.
Chronicle of a Summer1961
A foundational cinema-vérité film that interrogates its own methods and the relationship between filmmaker and subject. Shares Handsworth Songs' self-conscious approach to documentary and its interest in what can and cannot be shown.
But The observational style feels dated now and some sequences feel intrusive. The questions it raises are interesting but the film itself can feel slow.
The Spirit of the Beehive1973
Both examine how political and social violence permeates everyday life through form and tone rather than explicit argument, making the viewer feel the weight of history rather than just understand it.
Víctor Erice's haunting Spanish film about childhood and fascism uses minimal dialogue and visual storytelling to convey historical trauma without stating it. Like Handsworth Songs, it explores how oppression works through silence, atmosphere, and what is left unsaid.
But Extremely slow and quiet. Its emotional power comes from absence rather than presence, which some will find frustrating or boring.
Los Angeles Plays Itself2004
Both are essayistic films that use archival material and voiceover not to document but to argue, treating cinema itself as the medium of historical consciousness and critique.
Thom Andersen's three-hour essay film about cinema and the city uses clips from hundreds of films to argue about representation, labour, and urban decay. Like Handsworth Songs, it's a radical formal experiment using montage and voiceover to create a critical essay that could only exist as film.
But It's extremely dense and requires film literacy to appreciate fully. The three-hour runtime is genuinely gruelling and the voiceover-driven argument never lets up.
People
Cast
- Pervaiz KhanVoice Over
Meera SyalVoice Over- Yvonne WeekesVoice Over
Directing
- John AkomfrahDirector
Production
- Lina GopaulProducer
- Lina GopaulProduction Manager
Recommended by
Family Across the Sea, Babylon, Riddles of the Sphinx, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil