Black History Month: Reclaiming Narratives

This year’s theme for Black History Month, ‘Reclaiming Narratives’, highlights the importance of stories and the power they hold for understanding ourselves and others. It speaks to the negative impact of stories which “misrepresent, oversimplify, or entirely overlook the rich and diverse experiences” of Black communities.

As an organisation committed to amplifying the direct voices and experiences of women and girls – especially those consistently overlooked or unheard – we wanted to highlight examples of creative work created or shared across our membership which has offered a space for Black women and girls to shape, create, and share their own stories.

‘See Us, Hear Us’

See Us, Hear Us is a joyful yet defiant short film produced by Milk Honey Bees, centred fully on showing the layers of Black British girlhood. Following a group of Black girls as they hang out, walk around Brixton, and create (and destroy) collages about the ways Black femininity is represented, the film encourages us all to ‘actively see and hear Black girls, and do more to disrupt the systems that contribute to their oppression’.

The film is also complemented by the H.E.R. space zine, a collection of ‘Black Girls’ unfiltered thoughts, feelings and creative self expression to be archived, seen, heard and credited’, where Black girls can proudly take up space.

You can watch the film and read the zine on the Milk Honey Bees website.

‘Buddleia: The Unchained Story’

Buddleia is a documentary about Lady Unchained, dir. Tracy Kiryango, originally produced by ArtsAdmin and recently featured in Clean Break’s online Film Festival. The film follows Brenda – otherwise known as Lady Unchained – as she talks about her experience of finding her voice as a poet whilst serving a sentence in prison. After her release, she developed ‘Unchained Nights’, a creative platform for music and poetry by artists with experience of the criminal justice system. The film is structured around her in dialogue with people significant to her life story, as well as returning to places meaningful to her journey.

Whilst the film is no longer online, you can watch the trailer for ‘Buddleia: The Unchained Story’, as well as read a review of the film from Clean Break Member, Pepe.

By using theatre to reimagine ways of thinking about women and criminalisation, all of Clean Break’s work revolves around reclaiming narratives in some way. Their Digital Hub features other brilliant examples of Black women discussing the power of storytelling, including this previous BHM interview between playwright Emma Dennis-Edwards and dramaturg, Titi Dawudu.

Holloway

Premiering in the Documentary strand of this year’s BFI London Film Festival, Holloway follows six women who were formerly imprisoned returning to the empty women’s prison before its demolition. Produced by Power Play Productions, the film builds on a 2023 photography project developed in collaboration with Aliyah Ali, co-founder of Daddyless Daughters, who was frustrated by the way women in prison were portrayed by the media.

Although not all the women featured in the film are Black, it sees Tamar, Mandy, Aliyah, and Brenda, all Black women, alongside their white peers Sarah and Gerrah, navigate a series of therapeutic exercises together in an attempt to process their emotions, feelings, and life journeys in connection to the site. In doing so, the film creates room for these women to share a more authentic, vulnerable, picture of themselves, and in turn, reclaim their individual and varied stories.

We’re hoping the film will be available for wider release and future screenings soon!