Hard Light Cinema Presents: Babylon (1980)

Come to the ICA auditorium for a screening of Babylon, presented by Hard Light Cinema. Directed by Franco Rosso, which famously premiered at Cannes in 1980 and was heavily censored upon its release in Great Britain due to an X rating for “incendiary” content. Set in 1980s London—three decades after the Windrush generation of Caribbean immigrants first began arriving in England to help rebuild the country after World War II—the film centers on a young, working-class DJ of Jamaican descent as he navigates racism, Rastafarianism, sound system clashes, clandestine parties, and the threat of brutal police force in Margaret Thatcher’s England. Starring Brinsley Forde, lead singer of British reggae group Aswad, Babylon was only recently released in the US in 2019, following its remastering by Kino Lorber.

Doors 6 p.m. | Screening 7 p.m.

Series Description:
More than twenty years have passed since the scholar Paul Gilroy coined the framework of the “Black Atlantic” to describe a counterculture within modernity emerging from Black American, European, and African diasporic cultures. Given that these hybrid cultures feature prominently in the ICA’s exhibition offerings this season, the institute has partnered with the Hard Light Cinema collective to present four films that contextualize and deepen our understanding of Black Atlantic aesthetics and experience.

Additional screenings: Wednesday, November 19, Atlantics, directed by Mati Diop (2019); Tuesday, December 2, Lovers Rock, directed by Steve McQueen (2020); Wednesday, December 10, The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire, directed by Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich (2024).