The BFI are celebrating black cinema over the coming weeks with various screenings and events, culminating in the 11^th Black Filmmaker’s International Film Festival from the 6^th to the 10^th of November.

The BFM IFF (to give the festival its snappy acronym) kicks off with Chris Rock’s documentary, Good Hair. Prompted by his young daughter when she asked him, “How come I don’t have good hair?”, Rock travels across the globe to learn the extents to which black women go to achieve idealised, white-person-style, hairdos.  Black women spend $9 billion a year in their quest for ‘good hair’ and Rock, through interviews, investigation and his token light speed wit, attempts to find out why. The premiere is followed by a DJ night.

Other highlights of the programme include Paulette James’ Enter the Preacher, the tale of a preacher gone vigilante in a mission to ‘teach some respect’, Menelik Shabazz’s Lover’s Rock, a creative documentary about romantic reggae and Jane Thornburn’s The Family Legacy, a docu-soap style story of a young, expecting couple who learn that their child may be born with sickle cell.

The festival also incorporates seminars, Q&A sessions and music events. In addition, one UK filmmaker will win the festival’s grand prize of a US scholarship. Finally, in anticipation of the festival and to celebrate Black History month, the Great Africans series will be showcased for free from the BFI. The documentary series covers the lives of black icons such as Wole Soyinka, Wanguri Matha and Nelson Mandela

The BFI are also presenting African Odysseys as part of their regular monthly matinees of films with African origins. A Charmed Life is showing on November 14^th and Philippe Diaz’s Cannes selected documentary, The End of Poverty? on December 12^th. The BFI’s extensive archive, the Mediatheque is also available for free usage and offers “100 years of black British stories, histories and representation on film and TV.”

BHM is also being celebrated with the DVD releases of Playing Away, a humorous account of a West Indian cricket team in Brixton, and Young Soul Rebels, a study in social, sexual and racial politics when a young gay black man is murdered. Both will be available from the BFI’s film store from October 26^th.

To find out more about these events and releases, visit bfi.org.uk and bfmmedia.com/festival.