Stationary Peaceful Protest + Xhosa Cole Performance

Jazz musician and composer Xhosa Cole presents his first short film, a collaboration with animator Shiyi Li. Followed by a discussion and a performance from the 2020 Jazz FM Breakthrough Act of the Year.

In the summer of 2020, Xhosa Cole attended a Black Lives Matter protest in Birmingham city centre. The resulting experience left a profound mark, and inspired him to pen a monologue reflecting his thoughts and his own personal experience of the occasion. Intertwining his own music into a recording of the monologue, Xhosa collaborated with Birmingham-based animator Shiyi Li - the two of them worked together to produce a beguiling, free-flowing, and absorbing short film which is both powerful and evocative.

For this special event, presented by We Are Parable and Flatpack Projects (and part of "Who We Are", We Are Parable's long term nationwide season of Black Cinema), Xhosa will be in discussion with Anthony Andrews (co-founder of We Are Parable), delving into his experience of making the work. After the film and the discussion, Xhosa will perform one of his own compositions on the saxophone.