Brixton Community Cinema : The Black and the Green & The Ban
Monday, March 23, 2026 · 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Stockwell Park Community Centre
21 Aytoun Pl
In the wake of St Patrick’s Day, our next screening is a double bill of documentaries exploring the Troubles, a protracted and bloody chapter in the longer anti-colonial fight for self-determination in Ireland, and how it maps onto other struggles across time and space.
In The Black and the Green (1983), activist, documentarian and prolific chronicler of Black American life St. Clair Bourne accompanies five African American civil rights activists on a journey to Belfast, where they engage in a reflective exchange of organising strategies with Northern Irish Catholics involved in their own struggle for liberation from British rule. Through debate and immersion, they explore both the dissonances and resonances between the systems of oppression they confront, lingering on the fraught question of whether violence is necessary in the pursuit of radical change.
Collaging together revelatory archival material, Roisin Agnew’s The Ban (2024) examines the media censorship Margaret Thatcher imposed on the Irish Republican Army and its political wing Sinn Féin between 1988 and 1994. The film traces the incredulous dubbing techniques used to varying effect to circumvent the ban, while foregrounding the stakes of the tireless organising and conflict that continued to unfold. Though historically specific, the documentary draws parallels with the British government’s contemporary invocation of the threat of terrorism to justify restrictions on free speech and the right to protest.
Following the screening, filmmaker Roisin Agnew will be joined by author and academic Emma Dabiri, for a conversation with film curator and writer, Rógan Graham.
In The Black and the Green (1983), activist, documentarian and prolific chronicler of Black American life St. Clair Bourne accompanies five African American civil rights activists on a journey to Belfast, where they engage in a reflective exchange of organising strategies with Northern Irish Catholics involved in their own struggle for liberation from British rule. Through debate and immersion, they explore both the dissonances and resonances between the systems of oppression they confront, lingering on the fraught question of whether violence is necessary in the pursuit of radical change.
Collaging together revelatory archival material, Roisin Agnew’s The Ban (2024) examines the media censorship Margaret Thatcher imposed on the Irish Republican Army and its political wing Sinn Féin between 1988 and 1994. The film traces the incredulous dubbing techniques used to varying effect to circumvent the ban, while foregrounding the stakes of the tireless organising and conflict that continued to unfold. Though historically specific, the documentary draws parallels with the British government’s contemporary invocation of the threat of terrorism to justify restrictions on free speech and the right to protest.
Following the screening, filmmaker Roisin Agnew will be joined by author and academic Emma Dabiri, for a conversation with film curator and writer, Rógan Graham.