DIR: PERRY HENZELL
JAMAICA 1972 120mins 35mm
Ivan is a naïve rural man who seeks a life of fame and fortune as a singer in the big city. The reality of living there kicks in when he is taken advantage of, ripped off and forced into crime. Roughly based on the true story of Rhygin, an outlaw folk hero from the 1950s, this film was the first independently produced Jamaican film and served to show some of the realities and culture of a tiny island that was making big musical waves around the world. Jimmy Cliff moves from one centre stage to the other as the anti-hero Ivan.

Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

DIR: TED BAFALOUKOS
JAMAICA 1978 100mins 4K
Leroy ‘Horsemouth’ Wallace, legendary reggae drummer, portrays himself, a young man with a wife and kids, a deep affinity for Rastafarianism, and a new motorbike for his day job distributing records to various sound systems around Kingston. His motorbike is stolen one night, and his way of earning money is jeopardized, sending him on a search to find it in what could be seen as a Jamaican interpretation of Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist classic The Bicycle Thief. Begun as a documentary it blossomed into a feature film.

DIR: GODFREY REGGIO
US 1982 86mins 35mm
Blue is a DJ for a local sound system, already stressed living in the dangerous slums of London, facing competition from other sound systems and being the target of attacks by racist whites. He snaps when he is fired from his job, loses his girlfriend, finds all of his music equipment destroyed and is assaulted by white police officers leading him to commit a crime of which the ramifications will be dire. Showing the minority culture of Jamaican immigrants and first generation Jamaican-English youths in London, this gritty film, starring Aswad lead singer Brinsley Forde, has lost none of its potency.

DIR: STEPHANIE BLACK
US 2001 80mins 4K
In this revealing documentary, the grim social realities and dire economic situation of Jamaica is shown with brutal honesty. Black focuses her ire mainly on the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. With their globalisation policies they’ve driven Jamaica into billions of dollars of debt and decimated its farming industry, plunging the country into poverty from which it may never recover. Unflinching and incendiary, this documentary sheds light on the tourist friendly image of Jamaica and shows the utter contrast of the reality of everyday life for Jamaican citizens.