A one of a kind account, between fiction and documentary, of the reggae sound-system scene in Thatcher's England. Watch out, cult film here!
Portrayed by singer Brinsley Forde, of the band Aswad, young rasta Blue is lost in a British society that does not understand him any more than it has been able to integrate the wave of Jamaican immigration since the decolonization of the island in 1962. Unemployment, racist police officers, xenophobic neighbors and employers. A constant feeling of oppression that Blue lets out at the mic of his sound system, a huge homemade apparatus, as he secretly dreams of becoming the hottest "sound" in London. But a major obstacle arises along the way: the King of that scene, the dreaded Jah Shaka (as himself)...
Written by Martin Stellman (Quadrophenia, 1979), Babylon tells the saga of a small music-loving mechanic, staggering through an England sold to "Yard" as a mirage with streets paved with gold. A documentary and social work of fiction, the Jamaican-centric counterpart of Shane Meadows's This Is England (2006) that explored the roots of the Skinhead movement, this film is a unique account of the reggae sound system scene in Thatcher's England.
It emphasizes the social and political function of these massive walls of speakers in front of which people came to dance to forget the tribulations of a country plagued by a latent racism.
With Martin Stellman (pending confirmation) in attendance, along with Sébastien Carayol, journalist and curator of the exhibition Say Watt? The Cult of the Sound System.