What does it mean to redefine the Black narrative through film?
To coincide with our Black History Month Curated Film season, join film industry experts and creatives for a special interactive panel discussion exploring non-traumatic Black experiences on screen. Celebrating Black joy, love, and light within the Black narrative.
Hosted by Karen Gabay with Lissi Simpson and Kobi Omenaka, we’ll highlight the importance of sharing and talking about Black experiences that challenge the expectations of trauma on screen and discuss culture, pride and uplifting moments on screen.
Panel host:
Karen Gabay is a radio presenter, podcast producer, TV producer and award-winning film maker specialising in music and social histories. Karen has worked on landmark programmes for radio and television including When Bob Marley Came to Britain, Reggae Britanniea, Roots Remembered and documentaries on Janet Jackson, Prince, Jean Alexander. Within the social histories field Karen has won awards for her short films and curation on Belle Vue, Moss Side & Hulme and for her public engagement work through history storytelling. Karen has created and curated oral histories, video content, events and soundscapes towards exhibitions on Disabled Living, Manchester’s Belle Vue, Strawberry Studios and North American artist Emory Douglas of the Black Panther movement.
Karen is an advocate for profiling women in music and in radio and television, and also of music and education for children as well as developing emerging artists in the music and the arts. www.karengabay.co.uk
Panellists:
Lissi Simpson is a Jamaican-British writer and director from Lewisham, South London. Her work focuses on promoting inclusive spaces for marginalised groups to find & express their sense of “self”. Her work has been selected by BAFTA and Academy Award qualifying festivals, screened at Raindance Festival, as well as the BFI Waterloo IMAX and long-listed by BBC Studios.
Not limited by genre, Simpson has worked on comedies, rom-coms, spoken word and thrillers. A recent example, Mėxed, uses spoken word, natural allegory and dance to comment on micro-aggressions placed within afro-hair terminology by Western media from the perspective of a biracial woman. She has a Distinction MA in Media Production TV Drama from the University of Salford and a First Class Honours BA in Design from Goldsmiths, University of London. In August 2021, Simpson founded and ran Represent Me, with funding from The BFI, National Lottery and Film Hub Midlands. For two evenings, Represent Me selected and physically screened seven short films, all made by and featuring North West based LGBT+ and/or Black/Biracial creatives.
Simpson intends to continue bringing untold stories with real, authentic characters into the mainstream. www.lissisimpson.co.uk
Kobi Omenaka is a film and pop culture podcaster most notably with the Netflix based Podcast “Flixwatcher” and “The Wire: Stripped” a recap podcast based on HBO’s “The Wire”. Kobi is one of the founders of “Stripped Media” a podcast network that focuses on “Forward Thinking Pop Culture Podcasts”. Other podcasts in the Stripped Media Network range from “Equal Too” which focuses on the Paralympics as a means to drive improvement in disability representation through to “Tea With Twiggy”, hosted by 60’s fashion icon Twiggy.