One More Voice

Lost Voices from the British Empire's Archives

Motion Pictures

Overview top

One More Voice collects and curates a small selection of relevant, publicly-available motion pictures and sound recordings. The collection is by no means comprehensive and does not seek to be so. Rather, the collection offers site visitors an opportunity to move beyond One More Voice's primary focus on historical objects and written texts (archival texts and book-length works), and, in some cases, to see and hear the individuals who feature elsewhere on the site.

The motion picture collection also suggests further areas for investigation by scholars, teachers, and students. In fact, part of this section's critical intervention centers on introducing such items to audiences who may not be familiar with them. For historical context, the section also includes a few early anti-colonial documentary films and a small set of British-led colonial films. We welcome suggestions for additional items or categories of items to include in this section. Site visitors might also want to consult the Colonial Film project and the British Film Institute's India: 1899-1947 collection.

Special thanks to Philip Allfrey for helping with the accessibility coding for this page and to Mary Borgo Ton, director of Shining Lights, and Tom Rice, author of Films for the Colonies, for assisting with relevant research.

Creative Works top

Borom Sarret (The Wagoner)

Director: Ousmane Sembène
Date: 1963
Running Time:: 18:28

Chitraa, the Play

Author: Rabindarath Tagore
Directors: Prataya Saha and Shatarupa Bhattacharyya
Dates: 2020 [1913]
Running Time:: 29:47

Mr. Mensah Builds a House

Group of men beside a ticket office; the one in foreground holds a piece of paper.

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Director: Sean Graham
Production Company: Gold Coast Film Unit
Date: 1955
Running Time: 36:19

Progress in Kojokrom

Shantytown with people in foreground; “Kojokrom Election Date” superimposed on image.

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Production Company: Gold Coast Film Unit
Date: 1953
Running Time: 23:12

The Boy Kumasenu

People in bar with man and woman dancing close together in foreground.

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Director: Sean Graham
Production Company: Gold Coast Film Unit
Date: 1952
Running Time: 1:00:19

Tins for India

Director: Bimal Roy
Date: 1941
Running Time:: 07:15

Two

Director: Satyajit Ray
Date: 1964
Running Time:: 12:02

Wives of Nendi

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Directors: Stephen Peet; Mai Magwende (uncredited)
Production Company: Central African Film Unit
Date: 1949
Running Time: 19:05

Historical Footage top

Sarojini Naidu

Title: Movietone Interview
Date: 26 May 1930
Location: Unknown
Running Time:: 01:08

Sarojini Naidu

Title: Introduces M.S. Subbulakshmi in the Film Meera
Date: 1947
Location: Unknown
Running Time:: 01:25

Rabindarath Tagore

Title: Rare Clips Compilations
Dates: 1930; 1930; 1930; 1921; 1926
Locations: Berlin; New York; Moscow; France; Rome
Running Time:: 03:04

Rabindarath Tagore

Title: India’s Great Poet Sends a Message to America; Tagore Viewing the Thermae of Caracalla, in Rome, Italy
Dates: 5 May 1930; 7 June 1926
Locations: Unknown; Rome
Running Time:: 01:08

Historical Recordings top

Claude McKay

Title: Reads “If We Must Die,” “St. Issac’s Church,” and “The Tropics in New York”
Date: Early 1940s
Location: New York
Running Time:: 03:12

Sarojini Naidu

Title: Constituent Assembly Speech
Date: 1946
Location: India
Running Time:: 10:16

Swami Vivekananda

Title: Lecture at Parliament of World Religion
Date: 11 September 1893
Location: Chicago
Running Time:: 03:36

Anti-Colonial Documentaries top

Warning: Site visitors are advised to proceed with caution when consulting the films in this subsection because the films may contain material that can be upsetting or cause distress.

Afrique 50

Director: René Vautier
Date: 1950
Running Time:: 17:24

Les Statues Meurent Aussi (Statues Also Die)

Directors: Alain Resnais and Chris Marker
Date: 1953
Running Time:: 30:03

British-Led Colonial Films top

Warning: Site visitors are advised to proceed with caution when consulting the films in this subsection because the films may contain material that can be upsetting or cause distress.

Black Cotton

People gathering cotton in a field; one person with a basket positioned on his head.

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Production Company: British Instuctional Films
Date: 1927
Running Time: 13:48
Notes: British non-fictional film, originally produced for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924-25 and then played on the educational film circuit in Britain; depicts scenes of African industry, albeit very much in relation to British economic interests.

Daybreak in Udi

Man in doorway wearing a colonial-era sunhat.

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Director: Terry Bishop
Production Company: Ministry of Information / Central Office of Information
Date: 1949
Running Time: 37:31
Notes: British documentary that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1950.

Landing of Savage South Africa at Southampton

Large group of African individuals in traditional clothing with many holding shields and spears.

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Date: 1899
Running Time: 00:39
Notes: Very early representation of Africans (in England). Also see Nadi Kaabe Linke's work in reclaiming the personal histories of individuals in this film.

Nionga

Two men seated and in conversation among a group of African huts.

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Date: 1925
Running Time: 01:09:27
Notes: British fictional film, among the earliest shot in Africa; includes an all-African cast.

Tropical Hookworm

Man in white tunic on path surrounded by grass, shrubs, and small trees.

link to external site

Director: Leslie A. Notcutt
Production Company: Bekefilm
Date: 1936
Running Time: 12:01
Notes: Among the earliest examples of a British film made specifically for African audiences.

Cite page (MLA): “Motion Pictures.” One More Voice (an imprint of Livingstone Online), site launch edition, 2020, https://onemorevoice.org/motion_pictures.html.

Terms of use: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Header image caption: Anonymous, “Improved Phantasmagoria Lantern” (Magic lantern, c.1852). Historical object, in the care of Mary Borgo Ton. Image by Katie Chapman and Tassie Gnaidy, on behalf of Mary Borgo Ton. Published by permission.

Header image commentary: Magic lanterns enabled their operators to project illuminated views on interior and exterior surfaces; operators accompanied magic lantern shows with discussion of the images (often Biblical in nature) or, in some cases, read from and elaborated on a corresponding script. Victorian missionaries used magic lanterns, such as this one, while traveling abroad because these lanterns were light and more portable than their mahogany counterparts. Such laterns also played a little noted role in the early development of African cinema. For instance, Samuel Ajayi Crowther (c.1809-1891), Bishop of the Niger Delta and the first African Anglican bishop in Nigeria, his son Dandeson Coates Crowther (1844-1938), Archdeacon of the Niger Delta, and other family members used magic lanterns to instruct and entertain their communities and even made their own magic lantern slides. In one letter, Dandeson Crowther records receiving a set of magic lantern slides sent to him, indicates that he “had a show of them last-month,” and adds that “[b]esides these slides we exhibited others, made by my brother Samuel [son of Samuel Ajayi Crowther] & myself, on the Capture & rescue of the Bishop on the Niger” (Letter to Henry Venn [15 February 1868], CMS/B/OMS/C A3/O13 4, University of Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library, Birmingham). In another letter, Dandeson Crowther describes another performance in more detail: “You will be glad also to hear that we have had two grand exhibitions of your kind present the dissolving views. At the first show we made £ 5" 0" 0". The crowd in the Schoolroom was great, the room being small. To have a little more comfort, at the 2nd show we reduced the number of tickets (6d each was the charge) & collected almost £4" 10" 0[".]” (Letter to Henry Venn [8 November 1866], CMS/B/OMS/C A3/O13 3, University of Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library, Birmingham). Note: An issue of the Church Missionary Gleaner (9, no. 105 [September 1882]: 112) includes an advertisement for slides made by Dandeson Crowther. Images of another “Improved Phantasmagoria Lantern” are available from the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. Finally, Thomas Cradock Hepworth's The Book of the Lantern (1888) contains illustrations of the magic lantern configuration used to make the “dissolving view” special effect that Dandeson Crowther mentions above.