Slow emergency siren ongoing: accessing handsworth songs

Abstract

In 2022, a new layer of meaning was added to Handsworth Songs (Akomfrah 1986), a quintessential example of Black British filmmaking. The project and book, Slow Emergency Siren Ongoing: Accessing Handsworth Songs summoned once more the ‘ghosts’ of the stories haunting Black British history.1 However, this time round, Handsworth Songs was seen and heard in an unprecedented manner. As the subtitle of the project and book indicates, the film was ‘accessed’, that is, it was made accessible through the addition of audio description (AD) and creative captions. By making Handsworth Songs available in this way, the Black British experience encapsu-lated by Black Audio Film Collective’s (BAFC) essay film found a new audience that had previously been excluded from accessing the stories behind the riots of 1985.2 In addressing and connecting to a wider audience, the project bridges the temporal divide between the past and the future to provide both contemporary and future generations with access to these stories.