40 Years of Handsworth Songs

A screening and panel discussion marking the 40th anniversary of the multi-awarding winning documentary feature film Handsworth Songs.

Handsworth Songs was first screened at the Birmingham Film & Television Festival in October 1986; from October 2026 it will be on view at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, now part of the city's collections.

To mark the film's 40th anniversary during Black History Month, University of Birmingham - in collaboration with Mockingbird Cinema, Birmingham Museums Trust, Lux and others - is leading a free event that will combine a public screening of Handsworth Songs together with a Q&A panel featuring celebrated film composer Trevor Mathison (Founder of both the Black Audio Film Collective in 1982 and Dubmorphology in 2005), award-winning historian and cultural scholar Professor Daniel McNeil (Stuart Hall Interdisciplinary Chair at University of Birmingham) amongst other speakers. Our panellists will explore the meshwork of sociology, archive footage, and interviews that make up the film and consider what it means in Birmingham in 2026.

A screening of an innovative documentary by the Black Audio Film Collective to mark 40 years since it was first released. The screening will feature a Q&A with academics and local orgnaisations with an expertise in the Handsworth riots.

The debut feature of Black Audio Film Collective, Handsworth Songs is widely acclaimed for its innovations and interventions in documentary form and as a landmark of Black British cinema. Commissioned by Channel 4 for their series Britain: The Lie of the Land, it won seven prizes internationally, including the John Grierson Award for Best Documentary (BFI).

Dr John Fagg, Department of English Literature University of Birmingham

Professor Daniel McNeil, Stuart Hall Interdisciplinary Chair at University of Birmingham

Anyone is welcome.

May be of particular interest to Birmingham publics and audiences with lived experience of the Handsworth Riots, as well as independent filmmakers