TX: Channel 4
1991
Single channel 16mm film transferred to video, sound
80 minutes
Director: John Akomfrah
Producer: Lina Gopaul
Who Needs A Heart is a series of micro narratives through which we follow the lives of a group of friends and lovers between 1965 and 1975. A record of life on the fringes, the film explores the forgotten history of the British Black Power Movement through the fictional lives of a group of friends caught up in the metamorphoses of the movement’s central figure; the counter-cultural anti-hero, activist and charismatic social bandit Michael Abdul Malik.
Narrative has been replaced by a collage of fragments and a hallucinatory soundtrack – both of which work together to present a vivid description of the social scene through which the Black Power Movement flowed, and the emotional and psychological consequences for the young people caught up in it.
Awards and Nominations