Making filmmaking more inclusive
Frustrated by the lack of representation in filmmaking in the northwest London borough of Brent, one of the most diverse places in the UK, filmmakers Turab Shah and Arwa Aburawa set up Other Cinemas in 2019 as an exhibition, film school and filmmaking practice to celebrate and platform Black and minority ethnic filmmakers. Shah spoke with Nellie Khossousi on retention issues in the film industry, how to rethink a film’s success and why he hopes his and Aburawa’s work will soon become redundant.
Why did you set up Other Cinemas?
When I was growing up in Brent, there were no spaces similar to what I was looking for. Filmmaking seemed like this really distant thing that I would never have access to. It’s such a shame that people in my generation wanted to be creatives or artists or filmmakers, but never felt like it was a possibility. There’s a lost generation of filmmakers out there. So it was about trying to provide the spaces that we didn't have ourselves.
What does the organisation do?
We are very much a Brent-based organisation since Brent is where I grew up, and it's also where our studio is based. Brent is one of the most diverse boroughs in London, but there's very little provision for diverse communities when it comes to arts and culture.
Initially, it started as us trying to bring diverse stories to our local area through cinema. We started just doing screenings in the local community centre and library in Wembley. Then a year into that, we decided to start our own film school. Being filmmakers ourselves, we felt like we had a kind of sense of duty to bring more diverse and independent cinema into the area.
The ethos or motivation behind the film school is that I’ve been to film school myself – to three different film programmes [in fact]. Although I really enjoyed it and got a lot out of it, I felt like those spaces weren’t necessarily the best for nurturing diverse voices.
There was very much a sense that you have to make films for a particular audience, and that audience was always white, whereas we weren't allowed to explore our own identities, communities and cultures within those academic spaces.
So it was really important to try to create some kind of school alternative where our imaginations are allowed to flourish and not be diminished. It started very small with four students as a workshop and turned into an 18-month film school. Since then, we've had three more cohorts and each programme is a year long. It’s not just about teaching skills, it's also partly building those networks and relationships over a year-long period.
The other part of Other Cinemas is we are also filmmakers, we have our own filmmaking practice. Arwa and I work together and co-direct our films, usually around issues of race or the environment.
There are three strands to our work: the exhibition work, the educational work and then the making of Other Cinemas. And I think it’s really important to combine all three, and no matter what we do, we don't separate those three aspects of the filmmaking world. Our students need to think about who the audience is, where their films are going to be shown and screened and under what context.
'We’re not allowed to tell our stories in the authentic and uninhibited way that we want to'
What are the barriers facing filmmakers of colour?
Ostensibly in the film industry, there is always a scheme to make the next generation of filmmakers more diverse and get them into the industry. But what I’m seeing is that the entry point is not so much the problem – people can get in, but it’s retention.
Many people will join the industry but retaining that talent is really difficult because those spaces have not changed enough to make people from diverse backgrounds want to stay within the industry. A lot of people will start their career as a filmmaker, for example, in the camera department, but those spaces are not necessarily for them. So they’ll just leave.
But I think the biggest issue around representation is that it’s often seen as this numerical thing – that there are not enough Black and non-white bodies in an industry. But the problem is more about the lack of representation when it comes to our ideas. You might have many Black or Asian directors right now, but we’re not allowed to tell our stories in the authentic and uninhibited way that we want to.
Our film school tries to address that by creating an environment where throughout the year, we encourage people to make the films that they want to make, and how they want to make them, so when they enter the industry, they remember what it was like to do that.
What can others in the industry do to make filmmaking more inclusive and accessible?
Listening to what we have to say is really important. And just being humble and accepting that the fact that we’re even still talking about these things means that the industry has failed us in many different ways. Since Black and non-white artists and creators know what the barriers are, and what the issues are, let them take the lead on these things.
The other thing is about ideas and not always being beholden to the box office. There's always this thing about there being audiences for Black and non-white filmmakers and the ideas that you have are not necessarily going to do well commercially.
This commercial way of looking at the arts isn’t how we should look at the success of a project. It shouldn't have to be a box office success for it to be worthwhile. I think we should try to take the shift away from financial success and think about it in other ways.
In the film school, we try to get our students to rethink what success looks like. What is success? Is it institutional recognition? Or is it smaller stuff like community recognition that is more important than getting recognition from institutions that really aren’t there to serve us?
What projects are you working on at the moment?
We’re in the fourth year of the film school – we’re currently in the middle of an exhibition showcasing the work of the students over the last few years and we're working on a few different commissions that will help with the funding of the film school. We’re trying to shift away from this model of being too reliant on the grant and funding.
We want to find other ways to diversify our income stream so we can do the community work that is so important for us.
What are your future plans?
To continue doing what we’re doing, but also find a way to do it sustainably. We want everyone to enjoy what they're doing. Sometimes when it feels like this stuff is just taking a lot out of you, you kind of lose the joy.
It would be really nice to keep going as long as we feel like the work is relevant and necessary, hopefully, one day it won't be necessary. That would be the ultimate goal like having a typical academic institution doing the work in better ways where we don’t have to do this work and our work becomes redundant.
Find out more about Other Cinemas on its website and social media platforms.
Nellie Khossousi is a multilingual travel writer, filmmaker and content producer who shares stories about underrepresented communities in the hope of making travel more accessible and inclusive.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Runnymede Trust.
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Photo © Other Cinemas
