Filmmakers do not shy away from tackling culturally controversial subjects like African hair versus "good hair" at the 11th British Film Institute (BFI) International Film Festival - the UK's largest Black world cinema event, writes Maria Tadeo.
The festival at the BFI venue on London's arty Southbank opened with the award-winning documentary Good Hair - produced and narrated by US comedy star Chris Rock who attempts to answer his four-year-old daughter's dilemma: "How come I don't have good hair?"
By good hair she means long, straight and shiny hair as opposed to her natural curly African and apparently impossible to manage hair.
Rock embarks on a mission across hair salons all over America in an attempt to answer his daughter's question and find out why African-American women spend more than $9 billion a year on weaves, extensions and wigs chasing after "good hair".
A provocative documentary that will surely spark controversy with comments such as "It's (grooming) kinda like a torture session", "sex with a weave is a little awkward" or a scene where a women asks herself "so my nappy hair isn't worth anything?".
This celebration of Black cinema continues with titles such as Dennis Dortch's A Good Day to be Black and Sexy or Stascha Bader's study of Jamaican society and politics in Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae.
Thomas L. Blair is a sociologist and political blogger on the Chronicleworld 'for creative renewal in Black Britain and Afro-Europe'. His work is honoured in the British Library's archive of "social, historic and culturally significant web-based material from the UK domain". He won top prize in the blogging competition on The-Latest.
Sumantra Maitra is a freelance journalist from Mumbai, India. He is a correspondent for All Sports magazine, and a foreign affairs blogger for the Washington Examiner. He has written articles for news website Merinews.com and other regional publications. Sumantra runs a blog at DailyWorldWatch.wordpress.com. He provided exclusive eyewitness reports for The-Latest on the Mumbai bombings of 2008.
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