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/WRITER Rubika Shah
WRITER/PRODUCER Ed Gibbs
UK release supported by the BFI Audience Fund
“inspiring story of how punk and reggae gave racism the finger in
’70s Britain”
★★★★
— TIME OUT
“excellent brief documentary about a heroic grassroots political movement”
★★★★
— THE GUARDIAN
“lifts the lid on the genesis of the RAR movement and the result is
one of this year’s most engaging rock docs”
★★★★★
— NME
“smart, spirited”
★★★★
— THE OBSERVER
FESTIVALS + AWARDS
2019 BFI London Film Festival
Winner: Best Documentary
2020 Berlinale International Film Festival
Special Mention Crystal Bear
2020 BIFAs
Nominee: Best Documentary
2020 BIFAs
Longlist: Debut Director
2020 BAFTAs
Breakthrough: Rubika Shah
2020 BIFAs
Breakthrough Producer: Ed Gibbs
2020 CPH: DOX
Sound & Vision Selection
2020 Krakow Film Festival
Special Mention, DocMusicFilm Competition
2020 Indielisboa International Film Festival
Winner: Indie Music Award