The Windrush Caribbean Film Festival (WCCF) seeks to engage and educate audiences across the UK about the contributions of the Windrush generation and their descendants to the country through film screenings, talkbacks, interviews, and workshops. It returns this month with live screenings in three UK cities offering a vibrant program of feature and short films, panels, and speakers. This year’s features include ‘Sometimes We’re Invisible’, a performance-based inquiry into the presence of black people in Art from the National Museum Cardiff’s historic art collection.
The source of ‘Sometimes We’re Invisible’ came from June Campbell Davies’ experimental work exploring the existence of black Victorians, how they lived in Britain and why there is so little evidence in paintings or drawings of their presence. The performance is executed with movement not dissimilar to Japanese Butoh, where the physicality is extremely controlled and exaggerated, allowing the performer to internalize and transform fleetingly through a luminal process.
This is an immediate challenge for any performer, as audiences of this 30-minute film need to stay connected and entertained whilst being educated. This is a complex and fascinating project that successfully encapsulates several historic and cultural elements, from Nigerian folkloric religion, which has traveled with those from captivity to the Americas, to visually underlining the jarring of European values, the role of Christianity, and the global effects of 400 years of slavery, rape and pillaging. The narration by Ffion Campbell-Davies, a Welsh multidisciplinary artist based in London, adds to the project’s potency.
For further information on the festival and screening times, visit https://windrushfilmfestival.com/
Movie Rating: 3 stars.
Movie Rating Guide
1 Star = Unwatchable
2 Stars = Cannot Recommend
3 Stars = Great for the Fans
4 Stars = A Solid Movie
5 Stars = Must Own (DVD/Stream Download)
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