We are pleased to be able to share the conversation about Babylon from the event at Theatre Utopia in December 3rd 2015.

Despite the loud live music that was being played in the same building, the conversation was lively, and covered not just the film but also the issue of positive discrimination and the politics of race in cinema and society.

Sourced from here: https://moviemasterclass.wordpress.com/2016/03/03/babylon-a-conversation-at-theatre-utopia-with-lee-fairweather/

Lee goes into some detail about seeing the original script of the film and the process of securing its funding and production.

Mangrove Nine tells the story of conflict between the police and the black community in Notting Hill at the start of the 1970s.

The central incident of the Mangrove affair took place when a deputation of 150 black people protested against long-term police harassment of the popular Mangrove Restaurant in Ladbroke Grove. The protest – policed by 500 police and a plain clothes police photographer – later led to nine arrests and 29 charges.

Mangrove Nine Film | Produced by Franco Rosso & John La Rose.

I have this film on VHS somewhere – definitely recommended if you like Babylon and want to see more on London/Black history from the same Director!

Thanks to various contributors including Al and MandrewB who pointed out Marvelous Caine‘s junglistic sampling of Babylon. Al also mentioned Urban Distress from 1992, which I’d not heard before either.

Both of these have now been added to the Babylon Sampled On Records page.

You can hear both tunes on Youtube at the time of writing, but the links seem to go out of date pretty quick these days so I haven’t included them. Google is your friend…

And if you know any more please let me know so I can include them… eventually!

30 years ago this month the cult movie Babylon was released – giving a brutal insight into south London’s West Indian community in the late 70s. Ahead of a planned sequel, Miguel Cullen speaks to director Franco Rosso to see how the city has changed in the subsequent years.

Nice retrospective interview with Franco Rosso at The Independent.

Also hints of sequel!

I added the interview with Franco Rosso from New Britain zine to my dub pages in January 2001.

A few months later some information about the soundtrack was added as well.

In early 2002 this was expanded further into a little mini-site about the film. I have added extra material on an occasional basis since then.

In October 2008 the site was overhauled using WordPress as a content management system.

I hope you like it.