Into the memory forest: a collective gallery

In a way, this isn’t my first film memory at all, but I’ll get to that. When I was four, my Auntie Doreen took me to see Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and I was so excited – I think I had those promotional McDonalds Happy Meal plastic toys you used to get and had been begging her to go see the film ever since. It really is quite vivid for me, that memory, being in this big, dark room and yet feeling so at home. I lay down in her lap and stared up at the big screen as the trailers played. The next thing I knew music was playing, and as I opened my eyes the credits were rolling. I’d slept through the whole thing and was distraught. I’m exaggerating slightly, but the toddler inside me still feels betrayed even today – how could she not have woken me up! Anyway, she took me to see many films after that, including the Barney film, which she still jokingly resents me for, but also classics like Now, Voyager, The Joy Luck Club and The Princess Bride. It’s corny, but I guess you could say I’ve been making an effort to see everything ever since.

There were two independent cinemas and one commercial one where I grew up. Quite early on I recognised that each cinema served its purpose, and I was often taken to Filmstaden by my older siblings for a mix of family friendly releases and films I was way too young to watch. In between Mulan and The Emperor’s New Groove I was smuggled in to be scarred by The Sixth Sense at the age of 10. In those moments, cinema felt so attainable yet like a luxury all at once. This treat seeped into the home with almost daily VHS rentals and excessive channel-changing to find the right film which had just started. One of my older brothers would always flick through channels and declare the title of a film based on one image and one second of the film, and I remember thinking I wanted to be able to do that one day. So I never stopped watching films, mixing genres and mediums, commercial and independent and now working to make others feel like cinema is attainable and a very nice and unbeatable treat.

I grew up watching films that were entirely age inappropriate for me. Picture seven-year-old me engrossed by Being John Malkovich, or 10-year-old me devastated when my mum confiscated the Scream VHS I borrowed from a friend in primary school. I liked to think that – even at such a young age – I really got what they were trying to say. And even if that’s only half true, there’s something about it that spoke to me anyway. Film is just so magically and intensely all-encompassing, right? The words, the images, the sounds, emotions flying around everywhere. The physicality of it. It’s so many things all at once. It demands you become obsessed with it – so I did.  

My earliest film memory is going to see Lady and the Tramp at Showcase Newham when I was little. I don’t remember anything about the film or the experience of being in the cinema itself, but I will always remember driving up to the cinema. In my mind, it was evening and I’d just woken up from a nap, and we just appeared in front of this magical illuminated building. I still remember being absolutely captivated by the spectacle of it, which is still kind of how I feel when I go to the cinema! I love indie cinema as much as the next person, but there is also something very specific about the type of overstimulation you get when you arrive at your local multiplex cinema and are bombarded by lights, sound, smells and chaos. That’s magic to me!

I fell in love with film when I realised I could go on journeys around the world without a passport. That I could escape into the lives of others and either forget the humdrum of my own or have my experiences and feelings validated on the silver screen. Film is magic, and I will forever be under its spell.

Watching Abbas Kiarostami’s Ten changed me – the realist storytelling and simplicity of it blew me away. I wanna be like Abbas K when I grow up!

One of my first and favourite film memories is watching The Apple (سیب) (1998), a film by Samira Makhmalbaf, daughter of the famous Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. It was after watching this film that I felt like I was able to really connect with my family. My parents being native Farsi speakers, having children that ended up non-traditional and working in different aspects of the creative industry – at a young age this film really felt like there was finally a middle ground, something that could be loved, understood and appreciated by all.

T A P E Collective (Isra Al Kassi, Angie Moneke and Nellie Alston) was founded in 2015 in response to the lack of representation on screen, and the collectives desire to platform and highlight the sheer variety of under-served films out there in the world. For the past few years T A P E has programmed events around the themes of identity and heritage; observing the different ways in which filmmakers of mixed heritage attempt to respond to ‘But Where Are You Really From?’, in doing so sowing the seeds for their new season with the BFI. 

Warda Mohamed is a writer and director from London. She’s previously worked in the production and AD teams on films such as Rocks, Last Night in Soho and The Duke. Her latest short film, Sorry, My Somali Is Not Very Good, is a look into a young Somali woman who is having difficulties speaking her mother tongue. This short will debut on BFI Player and in-venue at BFI Southbank in July 2021.

Warda is also the co-director of Bridge, a collective of film and TV industry professionals across casting, production, writing, directing and outreach, which aims to impact and transform the industry by ensuring the safeguarding and legacy of new and emerging talent, who may otherwise have limited have access to further career development opportunities and/or training.  

Hanna Flint is a freelance film and TV critic, journalist and broadcaster, from and based in London, of mixed British and North African heritage. She specialises in topics concerning representation and diversity in front of and behind the camera and is the co-founder of The First Film Club, a cinema event series championing the debut films of established and emerging filmmakers.

Grace Barber-Plentie is a film programmer for the BFI London Film Festival. She is also a freelance film writer and programmes other independent film events such as the sold-out Reframing the Fat Body earlier this year. Previously, Grace was a co-founder of Reel Good Film Club, a film collective running from 2014 to 2019 that highlighted diversity in cinema through affordable and inclusive screenings and events.

Roxanne Farahmand is a member of London-based collective Baesianz, which focuses on curating projects around Asian identities.

Amaal Said is a Danish-born Somali photographer and poet, based in London. Her photographs have been featured in Vogue, the Guardian and the New York Times. She is concerned with storytelling and how best she can connect with people to document their stories. She won Wasafiri Magazine’s New Writing Prize for poetry in 2015. She is a member of Octavia, poetry collective for womxn of colour, and is a former Barbican Young Poet.