Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners

showroomworkstation.org.uk

Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners was screened at Sheffield DocFest this morning as part one of a series set to broadcast in July this year.

The first 15mins of the film are entirely presenter-led. With PTCs and tireless cutaways of archives at Kew it felt more like a virtual lecture than a TV programme but 20mins in, it began to find it's feet a little. Although now we moved on to a slim and organic portrayal of idillic travel locations as our presenter and historian, continues to recount the evidence he has found, instead of actually showing it to us. I felt we lost a lot of the impact of the history, as it was lost in shots of nothing. We had no proof to anything Olusoga was telling us, despite him telling us he'd seen it.

bbc.co.uk

Credit where credit's due, the shots were nice. The "pin-pointing" on the maps showed exactly how common British slave owners were and that captured me greatly in that, 'it's close enough to Google Maps for mere echoes of past ghosts to be affected'. The musical score (particularly as we move to Barbados) was emotive and we finally began to meet the ghosts of the history that should have jumped right at us, given the title, from the very beginning. We were finally given the chance to explore physical history when we are presented with shackles and chains that provoke a rightly emotive reaction from Olusoga. I also got the snippet of archive that I had been waiting for.

epicworldhistory.blogspot.com

It's a tough subject to crack, and only towards the end did I feel engaged with the subject matter and actually pick up the names of some of these forgotten slave owners I was promised in the title. Here, about 40mins in I felt really engaged. There were contributors to shift the focus away from Olusoga, there were historical locations and specific figures to learn about. It finally emerged from lecture and became a story, it became television!

Overall the first 20mins of the film struggles, and I fear it might lose viewers on it's BBC platform. There is a greater need for archive, historical relics and locations given it is just that, 'history'. Overall, it had it's moments of revelation and some nice cinematography. There is one statement that sticks in my mind from the film being that we 'turned widows into slave owners and ordinary men into tyrants' and I feel that this is a history we (Britain) must accept and hold ourselves accountable for. I just felt that the film didn't quite achieve the impact it's title suggests. Overall, quite ironically, it remains my most forgettable film of the festival.