John Akomfrah and London's Black Audio FilmCollective employ an experimental and lyrical approach to this documentary, which examines the contoursof race and civil disorder in Britain today. They filmed in Handsworth and London during the riots ofSeptember 1985, and have made a collage of these haunting images with extensive archival material,personal narratives, songs, and poems. Handsworth Songs views the riots in light of the current industrialdecline and structural crisis in the country. Going beyond the media's conclusion-that color is somehowsynonymous with criminality-the film attempts to excavate hidden factors in the ruptures and agonies thatBritain's black community has suffered (factors such as the government's preoccupation with thecontainment of a "surplus class"). "There are no stories in the riots," the film maintains, "only the ghostsof other stories." Featured at the London and Berlin film festivals, '87.