Guest Blog by Saara: Review of Riots Reframed

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Hello! My name is Saara and I’m going to be helping with the continuity workshops at Shake! Particularly with the monthly film screenings. I am really excited to get involved and learn from everybody!  I recently graduated from Leeds Uni in International Development and Spanish and am now a freelance journalist and learning to make my own documentary films. I think the film screenings will be a great opportunity to get together and share ideas, whilst also getting the chance to see really interesting films.  I look forward to meeting you all :)

Here is a review I wrote of Riots Reframed by Fahim Alam. We watched this as part of the Shake! continuity program at Platform.

Riots Reframed demonstrates the power of documentary in its true form. Raw and intelligent, it challenges the superficial mainstream analysis of the 2011 riots. We were told that a swathe of ‘mindless criminals’ took to the streets, a bunch of dangerous rebels running wild without a cause. Mainstream coverage created the impression that we as a society should point the finger at these young rioters, and that they alone should be blamed for what happened that August.

Zena Edwards in new video documentary on 'riots'

Check out a taster of this critical new film coming out soon, this one featuring Zena Edwards.

To follow what's happening with the film VoiceOver: Riots Reframed, go here.
They write: ‘VoiceOver: Riots Reframed’ is an independent documentary aimed at countering mainstream discourse on last year’s riots and riots that occur in poor, racialised and marginalised communities generally. Dominant media has towed the government line that August’s riots were about “criminality, pure and simple..."


Young people from Shake! worked with facilitators Ed Lewis, Simon Murray and Zena for their sell-out session "The Unheard" at the Rebellious Media Conference last year, and at the natonal Shake! event "Britain on Trial" in Leeds. Zena is involved in several youth initiatives combatting stereotypical, biased and racist responses to the uprisings.

Videos of Shake! at Rebellious Media Conference

Those good people at RMC have now put up a great compilation of videos from Shake's session "The Unheard: Youth, 'the riots' and the media" at the 2011 conference in London.

Watch recordings from the session itself, plus interviews and poetry performed by Rotimi, Samia, Selina and Kadish (Leeds Young Authors).

 

Also watch interviews with Shake! poet-facilitators Sai and Zena from Ceasefire magazine's Adam Elliot-Cooper over on our videos page.

We had more good news from RMC organiser Gabriel Carlyle recently. He told us that once they'd digested all the written evaluation forms, Shake's session got the most number of glowing reviews. People were energised by hearing directly and unmediated from young people, and they loved the structure (a mix of poetry, commentary, and discussion).

This was the fruit of all that brilliant planning from the team: Selina, Samia, Ed, Sai, Rotimi, Jane. And big thanks to Ed from New Left Project who kept the team cooking across 4 cities in the run-up...

'Arts & Activism, Culture and Resistance' event, 18th February, London

Just booked tickets to this event for young people, artists and activists at London Metropolitan Archives near Farringdon. LMA have a big collection on anti-racist struggle in London in their Black Caribbean Community Archives*.

Looks really really interesting, with great artists running sessions including Roshini Kempadoo, Jean Joseph, Errol Lloyd, and includes a youth conference. Step Forward Youth with Gus John, Akala and others.

Spread the word.

*Eric and Jessica Huntley gave their collection to LMA and set up these annual events there. They are political activists from Guyana who came to Britain in the 1950s. Among many other activities, they set up a radical publishing company Bogle-l'Ouverture, promoting Black writers, thinkers, political activists. 

The Unheard: more great feedback

Ro, Kadish, Selina on the panel

The emails are still coming in about Shake's event "The Unheard: Youth, the 'riots', and the media" at Rebellious Media Conference on 9th October.

"...I was over at the Rebellious Media Conference and caught the discussion on the London riots that you  guys were involved in facilitating. It was fantastic....."  From Rabble Magazine  (Dublin)

"...I went to your session about the media and the london riots at the Rebellious Media Conference and I can honestly say I cannot rave enough about the session and the issues discussed.  I have literally told every person I've seen since then about how impressed I was!  Since getting back to Glasgow I spent my whole morning at work learning about the the work you do and about all the people involved, this has only increased my admiration for the organisation and makes me a little gutted that I don't live in London to get involved..."

Samia tells it

gripped...

 Cairsti (Glasgow)

We're waiting for some audio, and video... keep an eye out.

Mainstream Media Coverage of UK "Riots" compared to War Reporting: John Pilger & Greg Philo at the Rebellious Media Conference

We had an amazing and inspiring experience at the Rebellious Media Conference this weekend and a full house and lively discussion for our session on Unheard Voices: Youth,‘The Riots' and the Media. A proper write up and review of that event and more links soon but for now here is the discussion on the mainstream media's coverage of the UK August uprisings featuring John Pilger and Greg Philo. A more complete video featuring the same discussion is also available here.

IGNITE - Poem by Rotimi Skyer

Written on the night ot Tottenham unrest.
More voices of our Positive Young please.
Peace.

Ignite
Fire
Black engulfs da air
Smoke blocks out sky
Hands raised up high
...
Fire
Black is da youth
Emotions feel da heat
ppl burnt too much to retreat

Fire
Bullet tears thru black
Pigs grunt in their sty
Mama,
mama looks up to da sky oh my oh my at da sky she asks,

why?

Fire


Copyright Rotimi Skyers