Expanding her (White Riot: London (2017)) short documentary film, Rubika Shah's energizing film charts a vital London protest movement. Rock Against Racism (RAR) was formed in 1976, prompted by 'music's biggest colonialist' Eric Clapton and his support of racist MP Enoch Powell. White Riot (2019) blends fresh interviews with queasy archive footage to recreate a hostile environment of anti-immigrant hysteria and National Front marches. As neo-Nazis recruited the nation's youth... (Full plot summary below)
Enjoy FREE movies and series with your Prime (USA) subscription or when you start a 30-day free trial!
Expanding her (White Riot: London (2017)) short documentary film, Rubika Shah's energizing film charts a vital London protest movement. Rock Against Racism (RAR) was formed in 1976, prompted by 'music's biggest colonialist' Eric Clapton and his support of racist MP Enoch Powell. White Riot (2019) blends fresh interviews with queasy archive footage to recreate a hostile environment of anti-immigrant hysteria and National Front marches. As neo-Nazis recruited the nation's youth, RAR's multicultural punk and reggae gigs provided rallying points for resistance. As founder Red Saunders explains: 'We peeled away the Union Jack to reveal the swastika'. The campaign grew from Hoxton fanzine roots to 1978's huge antifascist carnival in Victoria Park, featuring X-Ray Spex, Steel Pulse and of course The Clash, whose rock star charisma and gale-force conviction took RAR's message to the masses.
Leave your thoughts about White Riot.
| Austin ChronicleTim StegallThrough contemporary and vintage interviews, animation and live footage, White Riot insightfully and vividly details RAR’s reclamation of young Britain’s soul. |
| The New York TimesGlenn KennyOne of the many things that White Riot, a documentary about RAR directed by Rubika Shah, brings home is that the world could still use more somethings against racism. |
| CineVueChristopher MachellWhite Riot is a belligerently hopeful film: Shah vividly depicts the insidious violence of racism, but she also renders its futility in the face of community, and of music’s limitless power to unite and strengthen. |
| The Observer (UK)Simran HansRubika Shah’s smart, spirited feature debut is a whistle-stop tour of a DIY uprising. |
| The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeWhite Riot is here both to educate and to serve the nostalgists. |
| The GuardianPeter BradshawAn excellent brief documentary about a heroic grassroots political movement whose importance reveals itself more clearly in retrospect with every year that passes. |
| Screen DailyDemetrios MatheouGiven the recent debates about British identity and the spike in race hatred and racially motivated crime – all as a result of Brexit – the timing of White Riot couldn’t be more apt. |
| Rolling StoneDavid FearThe filmmaker has given us a pitch-perfect, punk-as-fuck portrait of a movement. She’s also reminded us that, regardless of bygone victories, the fight still goes on. Here’s a blueprint for resistance. |
| The Film StageChristopher SchobertWhat’s most unsettling and provocative about White Riot is how current it feels. Because of this, perhaps White Riot’s greatest achievement is that it takes something that can cause sneers and eye-rolling—committed cultural and political action—and make it feel both necessary and triumphant. |
| Original-CinLiam LaceyThe film employs a punk-inspired cut-and-paste collages, smashing together footage of police and protestor clashes, rock concerts, television shows and political marches, all annotated with animated handwritten letters, posters, newspaper clippings, and excerpts from RAR’s fanzine, Temporary Hoarding. |
