Capital Celluloid 2018 - Day 19: Fri Jan 19

Welcome II The Terrordome (Onwurah, 1995): Regent Street Cinema, 9pm


This 35mm screening, presented by Cigarette Burns, is part of the London Short Film Festival. You can find full details of the festival here.

Time Out review:
This feature debut is an angry uncompromising take on race relations, guaranteed to put liberals on edge. Set ten or 15 years on in a claustrophobic black ghetto, it's the story of Spike (Valentine Nonyela) and his girlfriend Jodie (Saffron Burrows). Tensions are already running high - Jodie's pregnant and white - when a black kid is killed in a police raid and his mother goes on a vengeful killing spree. Ngozi Onwurah's dystopia isn't a comfortable place to be and the film isn't easy to watch. The makers have done wonders with a minuscule budget, creating a stylised but still credible environment hemmed in by metal cages, pierced by strobing searchlights and a bombardment of urgent rap. This is a world which doesn't breathe so much as pant. The acting, however, is variable, and the movie is sometimes both naive and repetitive. Imperfect, then, but also provocative: it never lies down on you.

Tom Charity

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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