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The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files (2019) #1200
DOCUMENTARY
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1 hour. BBC. David Olusoga opens secret government files to show how the Windrush scandal and the ‘hostile environment’ for black British immigrants has been 70 years in the making. The film features Sarah O’Connor, Anthony Bryan and Judy Griffith. Settled here legally since childhood, they were re-classified as illegal immigrants by new ‘hostile environment’ regulations. Unable to show proof of their nationality status, they lost jobs, savings and their health, facing deportation back to countries they could barely remember. David reveals how today’s scandal is rooted in the secrets of the past. The first Windrush generation were Commonwealth citizens - many of them ex-servicemen - coming to rebuild war-torn Britain. Yet even before arriving, they were seen by the Government with hostility. Civil servants and MPs warned of dire consequences if what they called a ‘coloured element’ was introduced into the UK. PM Clement Attlee even suggested diverting the Windrush passengers to east Africa - to pick peanuts. The same government was actively recruiting tens of thousands of white volunteer workers from Europe - some of them former members of Waffen-SS regiments which stood accused of war crimes on the Eastern Front - for ‘permanent settlement here with a view to their inter-marrying and complete absorption into our own working population’. The files expose how successive British governments spent the next decade trying to devise a way to prevent further Caribbean arrivals without appearing to discriminate against them. PM Winston Churchill, dissatisfied with ministers’ response to what he saw as a serious problem, kept the issue on the cabinet agenda and a special Working Party was set up to gather information to make the political case for immigration controls. Two weeks after the Queen’s coronation as head of the UK and Commonwealth, a secret race survey was undertaken and completed, looking for proof that Commonwealth immigrants were a burden on the Welfare State. Chief constables in major cities were asked if ‘the coloured community as a whole, or particular sections of it, are generally idle or poor workmen’, and if they were ‘addicted to drug-trafficking or other types of crime’. The Working Party found no evidence for the view that the ‘coloured community’ was less law-abiding or hard working than other Brits. When Harold Macmillan’s government introduced the 1962 Immigration Act, its control mechanism was the employment prospects of would-be immigrants. The files show how home secretary ‘Rab’ Butler, described the ‘great merit’ of the scheme was that it ‘can be presented as making no distinction on grounds of race or colour’, but would, in practice, ‘operate on coloured people almost exclusively’. By that time, Caribbean immigration had shrunk to a fraction of earlier levels. But, fearing further restrictions, the Windrush generation now arranged for their children to come. The ‘children of the Windrush' had full legal rights to join their parents in the UK, and many arrived with little paperwork or official record keeping. Successive governments passed new immigration and nationality legislation, often in response to perceived ‘problems’ or ‘crises’. Harold Wilson rushed through the 1968 Immigration Act, in just three days to stop arrivals of thousands of passport-holding British-Indians living in Kenya, whose businesses and livelihoods were threatened by its government. Edward Heath’s 1971 Act tried to restrict the legal definition of ‘Britishness’. It also placed the burden of proof on the claimant should their Britishness be challenged—a fateful clause for the ‘children of the Windrush’. Throughout the multiple changes to immigration and nationality law enacted up to 2014, the nationality status of the ‘children of Windrush’ remained unchanged and unchallenged. As British citizens with full legal rights to live here, they put down roots, pursued careers, raised children and grandchildren and contributed in ways great and small to the creation of modern Britain. But with the introduction of the so-called ‘hostile environment’ legislation of 2014 and 2016, their situation changed. Though they were never the intended targets of the new laws, the hostile environment machine that evolved over the decade wasn’t designed to make allowances. Suddenly required to prove their status (due to the 1971 Act), Sarah, Anthony and Judy found themselves unable to show the levels of proof demanded by the new ‘hostile environment’ regulations. All three lost their jobs for up to two years and ran up debt trying to make ends meet. Anthony was arrested twice by Immigration Officers and held for weeks in detention centres. Then a ticket was bought to deport him to Jamaica, a country hadn’t seen since he left, aged eight, in 1965. ‘They broke me in there’, Anthony says. ‘It was hard’. Judy Griffith, still struggling to repay her debts, says: ‘It makes you question the whole, what is British? What is Britishness?’ |
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Paddington 2 (2017) #1288
FILM
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Directed by Paul King. With Ben Whishaw, Hugh Grant, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins. Paddington (Ben Whishaw), now happily settled with the Brown family and a popular member of the local community, picks up a series of odd jobs to buy the perfect present for his Aunt Lucy's (Imelda Staunton's) 100th birthday, only for the gift to be stolen. |
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Dan Cruickshank: Resurrecting History: Warsaw (2015) #893
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Dan Cruickshank returns to his childhood home of Warsaw for the first time in almost 60 years. In a personal and moving film, he recalls his boyhood memories to explore the memories of the city and the memories of its people. No city in Europe suffered so much destruction in the Second World War, no city rose up so heroically from the ashes. The Nazis had razed Warsaw to the ground, but after the war the people fought hard to bring their city back from the dead in one of the greatest reconstruction jobs in history. As a boy, Cruickshank lived in the rebuilt old town and it inspired his love of architecture and made him the man he is today. |
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Jobs (2013) #247
FILM
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Directed by Joshua Michael Stern. With Ashton Kutcher, Dermot Mulroney, Josh Gad, Lukas Haas. The story of Steve Jobs' ascension from college dropout into one of the most revered creative entrepreneurs of the 20th century. |
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Martin Luther King and the March on Washington (2013) #754
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Documentary commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's March on Washington, a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. This programme tells the story of the how the march for jobs and freedom began, speaking to the people who organised and participated in it. Using rarely seen archive footage the film reveals the background stories surrounding the build up to the march as well as the fierce opposition it faced from the JFK administration, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and widespread claims that it would incite racial violence, chaos and disturbance. The film follows the unfolding drama as the march reaches its ultimate triumphs, gaining acceptance from the state, successfully raising funds and in the end, organised and executed peacefully - and creating a landmark moment in the struggle for civil rights and racial equality in the united states. Including interviews with some of the key actors: members of the inner circles of the core organizational groups such as Jack O'Dell, Clarence B. Jones, Julian Bond and Andrew Young; Hollywood supporters and civil rights campaigners including Harry Belafonte, Diahann Carroll and Sidney Poitier; Performing artists at the March such as Joan Baez and Peter Yarrow; as well as JFK administration official, Harris Wofford; the CBS Broadcaster who reported from the March, Roger Mudd; Clayborne Carson, the founding director of Stanford's Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute and a participant in the March; as well as those who witnessed the march on TV and were influenced by it, such as Oprah Winfrey, and most of all, the remembrances of the ordinary citizens who joined some 250,000 Americans at the capital on that momentous. |
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Unrivaled (2010) #313
FILM
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Directed by Warren P. Sonoda. With Hector Echavarria, Steven Yaffee, Nicholas Campbell, Jordan Madley. The best fighter in the world works two jobs. The only problem... he doesn't know he's the best. Ringo Duran, the son of Gracie Duran, a famous Argentinian kick boxer, works two jobs to make ends meet. His passion, full contact fighting. His goal, fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a professional fighter. Ringo has put off attempts at a professional career for so long he has nearly succumbed to... |
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Bangkok Dangerous (2008) #70
FILM
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Directed by Danny Pang, Oxide Chun Pang. With Nicolas Cage, Charlie Yeung, Shahkrit Yamnarm, Panward Hemmanee. A hitman who's in Bangkok to pull off a series of jobs violates his personal code when he falls for a local woman and bonds with his errand boy. |
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New Town Killers (2008) #212
FILM
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Directed by Richard Jobson. With James Anthony Pearson, Dougray Scott, Alastair Mackenzie, Charles Mnene. Two private bankers, Alistair and Jamie, who have the world at their feet get their kicks from playing a 12 hour game of hunt, hide and seek with people from the margins of society. Their next target is Sean Macdonald a parentless teenager who lives with his sister on a housing estate on the outskirts of Edinburgh. She's in debt, he's going nowhere fast. Sean agrees to play for cash. He soon ... |
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Flashdance (1983) #361
FILM
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Directed by Adrian Lyne. With Jennifer Beals, Michael Nouri, Lilia Skala, Sunny Johnson. A Pittsburgh woman with two jobs as a welder and an exotic dancer wants to get into ballet school. |