Before The Applause

A trio of dancers explore tidal cycles of repair, loss, joy and intimacy, expressed through movement and digital imagery. In Yewande 103’s latest offering, Fountain (2022) speaks to the tides that shape our world and exist within our bodies. Guided by choreographer Alexandrina Hemsley’s tightly woven movement score and filmed in a darkened theatre space, the film explores the ways in which Blackness is contained in water. It is a spectrum of great magnitude, from the playfulness of splashing through a fountain in the summertime, to the oceanic passages forced upon those who were stolen from their homes. We are motivated to consider the inescapable tides of life and death and our watery bodies’ simultaneous existence as oceans, tombs and sanctuaries.

In this episode, Rudzani & Rickay discuss the film, their performances and the film's inspirations.

Fringe of Colour Films is a hybrid arts festival for Black people and People of Colour. Find out more at⁠ ⁠fringeofcolour.co.uk⁠⁠

What is left of family ties when our elders have passed? Michael Jenkins explores loss and new beginnings in this touching short. Leon wakes from an unsettling dream, calling him to go straight to his grandmother’s house where he discovers that she has passed on. Turned away by his estranged extended family during the Nine Night proceedings, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery, guided by a mysterious figure. Filmed against the backdrop of Bristol’s hills, Pickney (2021), written and directed by Michael Jenkins, traces a young mixed-race boy’s grief and yearning for connection to a family he feels only partially related to. Does the loss of his nan sever the last remaining ties to his Caribbean family, or present an opportunity to reflect and act on the aspects of his life and identity that he feels has been missing?

In this episode, Michael discusses the inspirations and influences behind the film and more. 

Fringe of Colour Films is a hybrid arts festival for Black people and People of Colour. Find out more at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠fringeofcolour.co.uk⁠⁠⁠

Outdoor activists discuss their experiences of working with their communities to foster a sense of connection and belonging to the natural world. When People of Colour make up only 1% of visitors to UK National Parks (according to The Campaign to Protect Rural England), is it true to say that the British outdoors are for everyone? In We Are Nature (2022), directors and producers Jaha Browne and Olivia Martin McGuire speak to those currently working to dispel myths of exclusivity associated with visiting rural landscapes. The film centres on the gentle activism that is involved in taking Communities of Colour into nature, to walk, exercise, exist within and find inspiration from. Following lockdown restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are reminded that a real relationship to our outside world is a pertinent issue in the struggle for liberation.

In this episode, Jaha discusses the inspirations and influences behind the film and more. 

Fringe of Colour Films is a hybrid arts festival for Black people and People of Colour. Find out more at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠fringeofcolour.co.uk⁠⁠

April Lin 林森 presents a dream-like journey across parallel dimensions in their speculative film that imagines a world without capitalism. One protagonist grapples with the reality of living in a capitalist world lacking in meaning. The other, living in a utopian world guided by cosmic entity Ta, reveals the possibilities of a life unbound by Western constructs of race, gender and class. The film’s title comes from ‘tā’, the monosyllabic sound which, in Mandarin, encompasses all third person pronouns: 他 (third person male), 她 (third person female), and 它 (more-than-human lifeforms and objects). As these multiple genders and modes of being are all pronounced ‘tā’, the word ‘ta’ has in recent years been reconfigured and adopted as a gender neutral pronoun. Communicating through a series of letters, the protagonists must face the realities of each others’ dimensions, shaking their understanding of their own world in the process.

In this episode, April discusses the inspirations and influences behind the film and more. 

Fringe of Colour Films is a hybrid arts festival for Black people and People of Colour. Find out more at⁠⁠⁠ fringeofcolour.co.uk⁠

Poems become photographs that become moving images in this poignant exploration of family, memory and loss, as an artist finally returns home. In Ikom, Cross River State, Nigeria, filmmaker and artist Ofem Ubi interrogates what can be brought back when an artist has left home to develop their craft, and which forces inevitably call them home. His grandfather reflects on his precious handwritten records of wives, children and grandchildren, as the space left by Ubi’s grandmother leaves a hole in the community’s consciousness. Back on Home Soil (2023) began as a poetry and photography project, tracing the filmmaker’s family history through ruminations and photographs shared with his community. It takes its latest form as a touching film that archives this process, continuing its pursuit to find how memory, family and time can cope in the search for normalcy, after having been seared by loss.

In this episode, Ofem discusses the inspirations and influences behind the film and more. 

Fringe of Colour Films is a hybrid arts festival for Black people and People of Colour. Find out more at⁠ fringeofcolour.co.uk⁠

A visual poem inspired by Akwaeke Emezi’s memoir Dear Senthuran, tracing stories of elders through a present-day journey across the British countryside. Mojereoma Ajayi-Egunjobi contains the memories of her ancestors, bearing both a lingering trauma passed down through generations and a sense of shared resilience. While moving through a woodland setting, Mojere, on crutches, reflects on the burdens that weigh her down - a relenting permanence, grief, an overwhelming sense of emotional fragility more delicate than the thinnest thread. She is joined in her thoughts by her grandmother, who remains an important figure in the artist’s spiritual life. Dear Omolere (2022) is a powerful performance that speaks to disability, spirituality and the strength that can be found when you allow yourself to be guided by the will of those who came before you; those who overcame and continued their journeys.

In this episode, Mojere discusses the inspirations and influences behind the film and more. 

Fringe of Colour Films is a hybrid arts festival for Black people and People of Colour. Find out more at⁠⁠⁠ ⁠fringeofcolour.co.uk⁠⁠

A meditation on the work of the trailblazing Scottish-Ghanaian artist Maud Sulter and an interrogation of the politics of artistic memory. maud. (2022) demands answers as to why Sulter's legacy and impact has been so well-hidden from the wider Scottish artistic landscape. Released fourteen years after her death, the film explores the politics of memory and how this intersects with art; who do we celebrate and who goes largely unrecognised? Filmed in Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews, four Black artists currently making art in Scotland - Adebusola Ramsay, Sekai Machache, Zoë Zo, Zoë Tumika & Zoë Guthrie and Camara Taylor - discuss how learning about Maud Sulter has affected them and their practice. We are called upon to explore Sulter’s impressive body of work ourselves, including her writing, visual art and collaborations with other artists such as Lubaina Himid and Ingrid Pollard. Directed by Natasha Thembiso Ruwona.

In this episode, Chizu & Xavier discuss the film and its inspirations.

Fringe of Colour Films is a hybrid arts festival for Black people and People of Colour. Find out more at ⁠fringeofcolour.co.uk⁠

Throughout the borough of Queens, New York, Women and Femmes of Colour practice reciprocity in support of their communities. Through an audiovisual poem, Cecilia Lim provides snapshots of the many ways in which this reciprocal relationship manifests, from caring for elders and preparing food, to protests for workers’ rights and standing firm against hate. Pagpapa(-)alam: To Wish You Well, So You Know (2022) beautifully frames the multiplicity of Queens through a joining together of different languages, both spoken and subtitled in layers. The film, which is accompanied by a zine, positions community care in the sharing and receiving of resources and in the honouring of our ancestors.

In this episode, Cecilia discusses the inspirations and influences behind the film and more. 

Fringe of Colour Films is a hybrid arts festival for Black people and People of Colour. Find out more at⁠ fringeofcolour.co.uk⁠

Human and non-human bodies are brought together to explore and celebrate the complexity of the natural world and our place in it. In this screendance film, director and environmental activist Madeline Shann interrogates the presence of Black people and People of Colour in the British Countryside. Through her collaboration with dancer Rudzani Moleya, a Black figure is situated in a landscape brimming with luscious green flora and constant movement, where she may represent an avatar or perhaps even the embodiment of nature itself. The Spring (2022) combines delicate close-ups and impressive aerial shots to remind us of the expansive possibilities of belonging to nature. What would we gain and what would we save, if we created more distance between ourselves and the anthropocene?

In this episode, Madeline discusses the inspirations and influences behind the film and more. 

Fringe of Colour Films is a hybrid arts festival for Black people and People of Colour. Find out more at ⁠fringeofcolour.co.uk⁠

Two friends prepare the dishes of their grandmothers and consider how, as generational migrants, they stay connected to their cultures. Filmmakers Noah Berhitu and Alejandra Rogghé Pérez present a touching discussion where they seek to share their experiences of migration. Their grandmothers represent a familial memory of the cultures and places they are now physically separated from. However, it is in honouring their elders who have passed on, through the imagery of clothing and use of language, that together the friends find their way back to their cultures. Violeta & Sofia (2021) centres on the preparation of a meal that will be shared communally, beautifully positioning the ritualistic role of cooking and the food we eat as a comforting means of connection for members of the diaspora.

In this episode, Noah & Alejandra discuss their inspirations and influences behind the film and more. 

Fringe of Colour Films is a hybrid arts festival for Black people and People of Colour. Find out more at fringeofcolour.co.uk