Retake Film and Video Collective

Retake Film and Video Collective formed part of a wider cultural ecosystem that emerged in the 1980s around independent Black and South Asian filmmaking (including Sankofa, Black and Audio Film Collective, Ceddo and Star productions). Known for their issue-driven films, these collectives successfully developed partnerships with funding bodies such as the British Film Institute, Arts Council and the newly established television broadcaster Channel Four. In so doing, Retake was instrumental in bringing South Asian British stories to wider public audiences through the medium of film and television, at a time when there was little media representation and often only in stereotypes.

The Collective’s members were Mahmood Jamal, his younger brother Ahmed Alauddin Jamal, Asad Qureshi and Latif, Bahauddeen and Sebastian Shah. Retake’s aesthetic was less driven by formal experimentation but produced social-realist issue-driven fiction films and documentaries. Its first release was the 1984 film Majdhar, directed by Ahmed Alauddin Jamal. It starred Rita Wolf as a young Pakistani woman who has arrived in Britain for an arranged marriage. After the marriage collapses, she forges her own path, resisting pressures to return to Pakistan. The film received funding from the Greater London Council and Channel Four, premiering at the London Film Festival in 1984 before being screened on Channel Four in 1985. The Collective then switched to documentary filmmaking, including Living in Danger (1984), Hotel London (1987) and An Environment of Dignity (1987). These films deal with the South Asian British experience of making a home in Britain, discrimination, racism and housing. In 1988 the Collective won the British Film Institute award for Best Independent Film and Television Production.