Movies by Isaac Julien

The Passion of Remembrance

The Passion of Remembrance

Co-directed by Blackwood and Julien, the first full-length feature film by Sankofa Film and Video offers a radical and necessary interrogation into what constitutes 'post-colonial' identity at a time of political and social restlessness in Britain. Set within an isolated desert landscape contrasted with recognizable scenes of the intensity of family life, this vanguard work demonstrates the richness and variety of the black experience; it is a poetic and hard-hitting commentary on the complexities of race, gender and sexuality.

Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask

Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask

Explores the life and work of the psychoanalytic theorist and activist Frantz Fanon who was born in Martinique, educated in Paris and worked in Algeria. Examines Fanon's theories of identity and race, and traces his involvement in the anti-colonial struggle in Algeria and throughout the world.

The Attendant

The Attendant

Memory mixes with desire as a museum attendant is caught up in sado-masochistic fantasies inspired by a 19th century painting of slaves in chains called Scene on the coast of Africa. The man remembers his past as a singer and delivers Dido's lament from Purcell's opera.

Who Killed Colin Roach?

Who Killed Colin Roach?

Who Killed Colin Roach? is Isaac Julien's first film, which reflects upon the death of Colin Roach, a 23 year old who was shot at the entrance of a police station in East London, in 1982. Even though the police claimed Roach had commited suicide, evidence showed otherwise. Isaac Julien says that this work is essentially a response to the riots, an answer to certain fixed ways of looking at black cultures, but also at those ways we might feel about ourselves.