WHITE RIOT

DOCUMENTARY | ENGLISH | 80 MIN

Rubika Shah’s award-winning and energising film charts a vital national protest movement. Rock Against Racism (RAR) was formed in 1976, prompted by ‘music’s biggest colonialist’ Eric Clapton and his support of racist MP Enoch Powell.

White Riot blends fresh interviews with queasy archive footage to recreate a hostile environment of anti-immigrant hysteria and National Front marches. As neo-Nazis recruited the nation’s youth, RAR’s multicultural punk and reggae gigs provided rallying points for resistance. As co-founder Red Saunders explains: ‘We peeled away the Union Jack to reveal the swastika’.

The campaign grew from Hoxton fanzine roots to 1978’s huge antifascist carnival in Victoria Park, featuring X-Ray Spex, Steel Pulse and of course The Clash, whose rock star charisma and gale-force conviction took RAR’s message to the masses.

DIRECTOR Rubika Shah
FEATURING Red Saunders, Roger Huddle, Kate Webb, The Clash, Steel Pulse, Tom Robinson, Poly Styrene, Sham 69, Alien Kulture
CERTIFICATION 15
SUBTITLES No | AD Yes | SDH Yes

Read more about the film here.