Racism in the UK

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: What drew you to the Blacker’s story?

MOLLY DINEEN, DIRECTOR, “BEING BLACKER”: Well, originally Blacker and I had made a film 40 years ago about what he was doing in a very underground network of sound systems in the U.K., and 40 years later, when his mother died, I offered to film the funeral for him. And we haven’t met much in between. And filming that funeral just shocked me really as to what I’ve found. I decided to carry on filming after that event, and he agreed.

AMANPOUR: And what was shocking, Molly?

DINEEN: I think the eulogy is. What I felt that was coming — I mean, even the pastor had had a brush with the police. It seemed to me this was a beleaguered community. They were incredibly strong family. And there was 700 people in the church, but it was another thing that struck me, which is that it was not a very mixed event. I think there were three white people and Blacker’s mother had been living and working in the U.K. for over 60 years.

AMANPOUR: Blacker Dread, let me ask you, you know, Molly just said there were maybe three white people in the congregation for your mother’s funeral. What made you trust — I know that you’ve done this film with her a long time ago about the sound system. But what made you trust Molly, a white woman to tell your story, the much more intimate and deep story of you personally, not just the music?

BLACKER DREAD, MUSIC PRODUCER: Well, yes, good afternoon. Well, Molly, I’d seen her as a friend originally, after doing the first documentary, and we did keep in touch on and off. And so this was an opportunity and I thought, the stuff that was going on in and around the community, around my life, around my mom, my family, my friends, and the black community in general, Molly offered her services. This is a lady that in the intervening years or 40 years have won multiple BAFTA Awards and this was somebody who was actually wanting to do something in the community, something real, not something that was made up because everything that was — that is in our documentary, everything is 100 percent real.