The absence of black life on our cinema screens is glaring. Is targeted programming and careful marketing the best way to serve black British audiences?
Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Nate Parker in Beyond The Lights
Everett / REX Shutterstock
Beyond the Lights begins in south London. Macy, a single mother, cheers on Noni, her mixed race daughter, as she sings Nina Simone's "Blackbird" at her primary school talent show. Noni's talent carries her all the way from Brixton to Beverley Hills, landing her a career as a pop star. Later, over the closing credits, Londoner Rita Ora's Oscar-nominated song "Grateful" plays. Noni's British identity is threaded throughout the film, her fish-out-of-water quality only emphasised by her British accent. If Britain has such a presence in this film, then why is it that almost a year after its release in the U.S., most British audiences have yet to see it?
The mother and daughter in Beyond the Lights are played by British actors Minnie Driver and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The latter joins a long – and ever-expanding – list of black British actors (from Marianne Jean-Baptiste to David Oyelowo) who have left London for Los Angeles. An ongoing discussion about the implications of such an exodus for the British film industry is taking place, but it isn't just black actors Britain is losing out on – it's black films, too.
Here in the U.K., Beyond the Lights is available to rent or buy on iTunes, Amazon or on DVD. However, if black Britons want to see this film on anything bigger than a laptop screen, they had better look elsewhere. Its director, Gina Prince-Bythewood made the seminal and beloved romantic drama Love and Basketball; she isn't a first-time filmmaker whose name and inexperience represents a gamble. Relegating Beyond the Lights to home release means it runs the risk of getting lost among the cacophony of options in an already-overcrowded VOD market. Refusing to release it theatrically and promote it properly is lazy; Denying black audiences the communal experience of seeing themselves and their stories validated on the big screen is insidiously dismissive.
With the exception of historical dramas like Selma, The Butler, 12 Years a Slave (the latter backed by British production company Film4) and Kevin Hart comedies, a whole slew of films like Beyond the Lights are making their way over to U.K. cinemas at a snail's pace – or, more commonly, not at all.
