Artists' Film: Concerning Violence

Concerning Violence: Nine Scenes from the Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defense (2014) is an award-winning documentary written and directed by Swedish filmmaker, Göran Olsson. This documentary is based on Frantz Fanon’s controversial essay ‘Concerning Violence’ from his posthumously published book Wretched of the Earth (1961). Fanon’s words are recited in English by the singer-songwriter, Lauryn Hill, and appear on screen alongside emotive archival footage from the 1960’s and 1970’s African independence movements.

Fanon’s thoughts on violence have often been heavily decontextualised and misread as promoting all forms of violence to the extent that the book was banned in France upon release. The documentary attempts to contextualise Fanon’s meaning of violence, focusing primarily on the violence imposed by the colonisers and the violence enacted in response.

The screening will be followed by a conversation with artist, curator and educator Barby Asante and lecturer Amy Rushton, moderated by poet and researcher Panya Banjoko. The conversation will further contextualise Fanon’s meaning of and thoughts on violence and examine the representation of the people presented in the footage, whilst questioning ‘who can speak for whom?’. This will be an exciting and thought-provoking event that aims to encourage important and necessary conversations surrounding the context, and forms, of violence and the ethics of representation.

This event is curated by NTU MA and PhD students Roxie Ablett, Arwa Nasser Almefawaz, Victoria Zoe Callus, Bethan Evans, and Tom Lockwood-Moran.