Hard Light Cinema

🌊 Part 1/4 of our Black Atlantic series

Famously premiered at Cannes in 1980 and initially censored in Great Britain due to “incendiary” content, Babylon depicts the Windrush generation, a generation of Caribbean immigrants invited to England in 1948 to help rebuild the country after the war. Babylon’s story is set during this peculiar moment in time and depicts the experience of these first-generation immigrants in Margaret Thatcher’s England. Soundsystem clashes, clandestine parties, Rastafarianism, and the threat of brutal police force define the world of Babylon. Starring Brinsley Forde (the lead singer of British Reggae group Aswad), Babylon’s refractory form reflects the kaleidoscopic nature of its creation.  This film has only recently become available to a wide audience since its remaster by Kino Lorber.

— Lewis Peterson, Hard Light Cinema