Trip To The BFI

On the 5th of February we went down to London to the BFI (British Film Institution) and attended a lecture by Mathew Hall on collective identity.

The first half of the lecture involved a discussion where we viewed six clips from the films The Wild One, Rebel Without A Cause, Quadraphinia, Easy Rider, Human Traffic, and Kidulthood. We were asked to analys how we viewed the representation of the youth in the clips and how adults may view the representations of youth, and how they compared.

                                               


                                              

The second half consisted of the viewing of 'My Brother, The Devil' (a british film written and directed by Sally El Hosaini, released in 2012). It has a number of awards including the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and the 1012 Berlin International Film Festival.
The film is about two young Arabic brothers coming of age in East London, exploring issues relating to their identity, religion and sexuality. Here is the trailer for 'My Brother, The Devil':

We then, having watched the film, took part in a Q&A with Julia Godsinskaya, the producer of 'My Brother, The Devil'. The main things that were disgused in this session were the making of the film - what problems they had and how they went about actually filming it - and the responces that the film had received. I received an insight into how the film crew got around problems such as the London riots that were occuring and how they were not allowed to film in the streets of Hackney using knives for a particular fight scene that unfoldes within the streets. Godsinskaya also talked quite indepth about how many audiences interpreted 'My Brother, The Devil' differently, responding in a positive or negative way to how youth culure, religion and, inparticular, the sexuality of one of the main characters.