Caribbean news. With members of the audience travelling from Sheffield and other parts of Yorkshire, the Leeds screening of the #KUWTJmovie (by Sankofa Televisual in partnership with the Leeds Black Film Club) was a great success and included a fiery and stimulating Q&A afterwards about #BlackFilm #CaribbeanVisibility and #BlackProgramming on TV in the UK.
The showing of the hit Caribbean comedy “Keeping Up With The Joneses: The Movie” on Saturday 31st May 2014 took place in Leeds. The audience was vocal throughout and constantly laughing along with the well scripted performances on screen. Many were already fans of the TV series and were especially pleased to hear that more new episodes were coming soon.
It was then followed by a Q&A discussion on why the British-Caribbean community was so invisible (even after 60+ years) on television and cinema screens in the UK. With both the audience and the panel members made up of people from the local community and students from the university, there was a good range of opinions and ages.
Some of the key issues raised were:
– we can learn from British-African and British-Asian communities
– the older generations did not establish enough community infrastructure
– parents are not making the most of their 18 years of child-raising
– we are not making demands in the UK and are not having socio-political impact
– insufficient unity and insufficient clarity about who we are
– the community does not know itself and therefore the youth orientate/define themselves in an African-American context
– need to make more use of modern technology
– too much island focus, not enough overall Caribbean-ness
– the old guard has had its day, now its down to the younger ones
– we need to be more radical
The panel included:
Arthur France – Chair of Leeds West Indian Carnival Committee and Chair of Leeds West Indian Association
Joel Borquaye – radio presenter, broadcast journalism student and Media Coordinator of Leeds University African & Caribbean Society
Margaret Morton – Chair of Leeds Barbadian Association
Samuell Benta – actor/script-writer and Director of “All About The Mckenzies”
Ron Belgrave – Director of Sankofa Televisual
The Q&A was part of the ongoing discussions following the popular Sankofa-CaribDirect seminar on “Caribbean (In)Visibility” held in December 2013 which identified similar issues.
Thanks also to Norman “Too Tall” Francis of Leeds Black Film Club for facilitating the arrangements.
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