Revisiting the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, the film acts as an inquiry into cultural amnesia, relating to conditions of freedom under the hostile environment. The film strives to remember the identities erased and silenced through both deliberate and unconscious collective cultural amnesia, platforming the lives that were left to the ruins by acts of hostility, such as the infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech given by Enoch Powell at the Conservative Political Centre in Birmingham.
The film spotlights the Jamaican-born activist Eunice McGhie-Belgrave MBE and her friend and colleague Sonia Hyman, leaders of the Shades of Black Community Family Project in Birmingham. Founded in February 1980 during the aftermath of several riots in Handsworth, Shades of Black made an action plan to focus on rebuilding their community which they felt had been abandoned by social services. Organised by mainly womxn from different life experiences and cultural backgrounds, they produced an intergenerational model of care and compassion within their community.
We gather and Dream of New Congregations presents conversations, performances and interviews with them and the people whose lives have been impacted by their education, probation and mental health work.
