Haringey Community Cinema

In fact, one must note that at every moment Black peoples have sought, for themselves, to assert what freedom might mean and look like, those desires and acts toward freedom have been violently interdicted. It is this ongoing interdiction of a potential Black freedom that I have termed the long emancipation.— Rinaldo Walcott, The Long Emancipation: Moving Toward Black Freedom

Because Black history is not a month, Haringey Community Cinema (HCC) invites you to a powerful series of screenings exploring Black histories, politics, culture, and struggle across the globe. As part of this series, we are interested in examining what Rinaldo Walcott framed as ‘the long emancipation’ through the use of moving images. This series brings into focus how colonialism, empire, racism, gender and sexuality have structured the ways Black life and thought are represented, questioned and resisted on screen.

Our programme includes films that centre Black voices and perspectives, alongside works that raise questions about how Black history is mediated and by whom. 

We begin with the first chapter of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, read by Ms Lauryn Hill in Concerning Violence (dir. Göran Hugo Olsson). Next, Shari Frilot’s Black Nations / Queer Nations? chronicles the groundbreaking March 1995 conference on lesbian and gay sexualities in the African diaspora. To welcome Spring, we will shift our attention to the crucial role played by music in key moments of the Cold War with Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (dir. Johan Grimonprez). We will close with The Stuart Hall Project (dir. John Akomfrah), reflecting on the work and enduring legacy of Stuart Hall.

For this edition, we have curated a list of readings that we encourage you to explore before the screenings.

Our guest speakers for hosting our community conversations will be revealed in the coming weeks. 

Through films, readings, and post-screening discussion, we will engage with questions of power, representation, memory, and history, and with the ongoing fight for justice in our communities and beyond.

As always, our screenings are free to attend and open to all.

This event is funded by the Haringey Council for Black History Haringey 365.

Screenings and Talks

First screening: Concerning Violence 
Date/Time: 2 March 2026, 7PM
Location: All Good Bookshop
Guest: TBC
Booking: Eventbrite (Closed – available on 19/02/2026)

Second screening: Black Nations/Queer Nations?
Date/Time: 22 March 2026, 2PM
Location: Chestnut Community Centre 
Guest: Dr Lola Olufemi
Booking: Eventbrite (Closed)

Third screening: Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Date/Time: April 2026
Location: TBC
Guest: TBC
Booking: Eventbrite (Closed) 

Fourth screening: The Stuart Hall Project
Date/Time: May 2026
Location: TBC
Guest: Dr Clive Chijioke Nwonk
Booking: Eventbrite (Closed)

About the films

CONCERNING VIOLENCE (dir. Göran Hugo Olsson)

Concerning Violence presents a striking, contemporary portrait of African anti‑colonial resistance, built from archival footage drawn from Swedish documentaries filmed between 1966 and 1987. These vivid, on‑the‑ground images capture some of the most audacious episodes in the fight against colonial domination. The film weaves this material together with passages from Frantz Fanon’s seminal 1960 text The Wretched of the Earth, a work that continues to offer essential insight into modern forms of neocolonial power, the turmoil it produces, and the uprisings that emerge in response.

BLACK NATIONS/QUEER NATIONS (dir. Shari Frilot)

Black Nations/Queer Nations? is an experimental documentary that captures the landmark 1995 conference on lesbian and gay sexualities in the African diaspora. The gathering convened influential scholars, activists, and cultural workers to examine the economic, political, and social realities shaping the lives of diasporic lesbians, gay men, bisexual, and transgender people. The film weaves together standout moments from the event while tracing the links between popular culture and emerging Black queer media. It underscores the lasting significance of this historic meeting for Black LGBTQ+ communities.

SOUNDTRACK OF A COUP D’ETAT (dir. Johan Grimonprez)

Soundtrack to a Coup d’État is an Oscar‑nominated historical documentary that uncovers the surprising collision of jazz, decolonisation, and Cold War politics. It revisits the events that drove Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to confront the UN Security Council after the assassination of the Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba, and tracks how the arrival of sixteen newly independent African nations reshaped global power. As the United States scrambles to regain influence, Louis Armstrong is dispatched as a cultural envoy to Congo, part of an effort to divert attention from a CIA‑backed coup. The film offers a sharp, fast‑moving re‑examination of political theatre and the radical force of music.

THE STUART HALL PROJECT (dir. John Akomfrah)

The Stuart Hall Project traces the journey of Stuart Hall, who left Jamaica for Oxford in 1951 and went on to become a defining voice in the emergence of cultural studies and a major force in British intellectual life. Drawing entirely on archival film, photographs, and the music of Miles Davis, the documentary mirrors Hall’s own fluid, exploratory thinking as it moves through questions of memory, identity, and the shifting political landscape of the late twentieth century. The result is a rich, layered portrait of the man whose ideas helped shape the New Left and transformed how we understand culture itself.

About HCC

Haringey Community Cinema (HCC) was launched in April 2025 and is run by volunteers. Inspired by Brixton Community Cinema, HCC is aimed at bringing residents of Haringey together through film. Our mission is to showcase films that challenge, inspire, and spark critical reflection—films that make us think and act.