A special screening of Ken Fero’s documentary Injustice, a searing account of violent deaths in British police custody made with Tariq Mehmood and their Dalston-based film collective, Migrant Media. Since David Oluwale became, in 1969, the first black person recorded to die in just this way in the U.K., 1,000 others (predominantly black, but including Asian and white victims) have followed him to a similar end. No officers have been convicted in relation to any of these cases. The film follows four of the victims’ families, charting their ceaseless efforts to retrieve the bodies, the sham of police investigations and the often dubious role played by a supposedly independent judiciary. Utilising years of exclusive footage to tell the full story from the people’s side, Injustice builds its case calmly and precisely, to devastating effect. Since its world premiere at London;s Human Rights Watch Film Festival in April, it has become the most politically provocative British film of recent years, and the object of a concerted campaign by police officers’ representative body The Police Federation to stop any and all screenings.
U.K., 2001. Colour. Video. 90 mins.