The Ballad Of Olive Morris, a short film based on a 1969 incident in the life of the Brixton civil rights activist, has its premiere on Friday (1 July)
Director Alex Kayode-Kay said the project was crowdfunded thanks to support from Brixton residents.
It dramatises an incident in which Olive Morris was caught up in police racism and brutality as she helped a Nigerian diplomat being wrongly arrested for stealing his own car.
Kayode-Kay said his film is “an examination of a specific moment in time in the life of a significantly important British cultural figure, who is perhaps unfairly obscure in mainstream British culture.”
He said her activism was tireless fighting against racism and police brutality, and for women’s and squatters’ rights.
The showing is at the Genesis Cinema in East London.
It is playing with other films as part of the Windrush Caribbean Film Festival and will be followed by questions and answers with present-day Brixton activist Lee Jasper, and Lee Lawrence, whose mother Cherry Groce was shot by police in her Brixton home in 1985.
The film is presented by Fatoedo Productions In association with Lambeth council and and Greenlit.
