The Colony + Year Zero: Black Country

A double-bill of films from the point of view of recent arrivals in Birmingham and Smethwick, made fifty years apart.

Working at a time when rhetoric on immigration was becoming an increasingly toxic ingredient in political campaigning, Donnellan made no bones about his project on The Colony: “Our aim was to present as completely one-sided view as possible of what it felt like to be a West Indian in Birmingham.” The anger, humour and insight on show stirred quite a fuss on broadcast, and the programme’s influence endured; it was the source for much of the archive footage in Handsworth Songs.

The Colony will be accompanied by another perspective on the same subject, separated by half a century; Billy Dosanjh’s archive collage Year Zero: Black Country, which premiered at Flatpack last year.

See this screening and all other Donnellan events at mac birmingham for £40. More details here.