The Story Of Babylon By The People Who Made It

To coincide with its long-awaited UK DVD release, nearly 30 years after it was made, Ali Catterall interviews the cast and crew of cult British movie Babylon

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Babylon

Franco Rosso's incendiary drama about black Britain circa 1980 stars Aswad lead singer Brinsley Forde as Blue, the Ital Lion sound system MC who finds his lifestyle and culture under siege.

Sacked by his racist boss, two-timed by his girlfriend, beaten up by plain-clothes police - and not least, after the Ital Lion sound system is wrecked by racist neighbours - Blue finally loses it and stabs a likely white offender with a screwdriver. All the same, he manages to get to the semi-finals of a sound competition just in time to blow away their rival, the otherwise unassailable Jah Shaka, with a well-played ace: Aswad's mighty dub 'Warrior Charge'.

A film of sheer sound and fury, the uncompromising subject matter (it all but anticipates the race riots that engulfed inner cities soon after release) and classic reggae soundtrack helped cement Babylon's reputation as one of the most powerful and historically significant documents about the black British experience ever made. Here, for the first time in British cinema, is a portrayal of British reggae culture and Rastafarianism at odds with the 'multi-racist' society and state.

ALUMNI

Franco Rosso
Italian-born director and editor, who has worked on everything from Ken Loach's Kes to the films of black director Horace Ove.

Martin Stellman
Babylon co-screenwriter who also wrote Quadrophenia and For Queen And Country.

Gavrik Losey
Babylon producer and son of blacklisted Hollywood director Joseph Losey. Producing credits include The Beatles' 'Magical Mystery Tour', That'll Be the Day and Slade In Flame.

Brinsley Forde
Former child actor-turned-Aswad frontman and Babylon lead.

Trevor Laird
Actor, plays the hot-tempered 'Beefy' in Babylon.

Brian Bovell
Actor, plays 'Spark' in Babylon.

Dennis Bovell
British reggae legend and Brian's brother, composed the music for Babylon.

GENESIS

Franco Rosso
Babylon took a very long time to put together; the subject matter was a problem. After I did BBC 'Omnibus' documentary' 'Dread Beat An' Blood' [about the reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson], I went back to where I used to live in Streatham. I read an article Martin [Stellman] wrote in 'Time Out' about red Indians and liked it, so got in touch. Interestingly, he was working just down the road from where I lived.

Martin Stellman
I had set up one of the first free schools in London, and was working with a drama group in Deptford at the Albany Empire.

Rosso
The young guys at the Albany had their own sound system. There was a lot of passion in what the guys were doing, which you didn't get with groups of white kids at the time. These guys were totally involved, it was their life. They carried these massive bloody boxes around, guarding them, in vans that were always breaking down. Martin and I got together and decided that's what we wanted to write about.

Stellman
The stories behind Babylon came from the kids we were working with and also from Franco and I going out separately or together with sound systems. Dennis Bovell, for instance, was busted and ended up in prison. The original script was longer, and had a whole second half that was set in a borstal. So the first half was all London - pretty much the movie you see today - and the second half was Blue in this borstal, and all the brutality that happened there. And finally, he walks out of the borstal and out onto the beach in East Anglia, heading for Africa. Dressed as an Ashanti warrior.

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