How does community bloom after momentous events?
Following the death of rag trade worker Altab Ali in 1978, the British-Bangladeshi community in East London galvanised a massive anti-racist uprising, which has since been memorialised as the ‘Turning Point’ event. Photographer Paul Trevor captured the pulse of this movement. Decades later, these images have been mobilised with the help of oral testimonies by the Rainbow Collective.
In the same decade, Bangladesh tried to develop its identity as a new nation-state following the Liberation War of 1971. What did this new land look like? Contemporary Bangladeshi filmmakers look at the country through the cracks in its history, as machines breathe, habitats become denser, and crows sing into deep time. A globalising nation, a diasporic fight, and the long shadows of colonial violence create slippages that unsettle our understanding of ethnic historiography. The programme digs into these frictions, hierarchies, and hymns to land and community.
The screening will be preceded by an extended introduction by curator Najrin Islam.
Contains scenes of racism and animal slaughter.
This programme is curated by Najrin Islam, in collaboration with Four Corners.
The film programme 'East London, Bangladesh & Tales of Becoming' will be accompanied by a day-long exhibition at Rich Mix on 28 January 2026, showcasing Paul Trevor's documentation of the Turning Point event of 1978, as seen in the shorts by Rainbow Collective.
A response to rising racist sentiment against the diasporic Bangladeshi community in East London, and more concretely, to the racist murder of Altab Ali as he was returning home from work, the photographs capture the pulse of an epochal moment that caused tangible shifts in public rhetoric about migration. The photographs have been previously displayed at Four Corners as part of the exhibition 'Brick Lane 1978: The Turning Point' in 2022, and may now be read against the film programme's exploration of intercontinental connections. The exhibition will also carry a display of photographs from the Bengali Photo Archive, an eighteen-month project that brought together images and oral testimonies by photographers, organisations and local residents to celebrate the Bengali community in Tower Hamlets. Courtesy Four Corners.
