Babylon (1980 film)

Babylon
UK release poster
Directed byFranco Rosso
Written byFranco Rosso
Martin Stellman
Produced byGavrik Losey
StarringBrinsley Forde
Karl Howman
Trevor Laird
CinematographyChris Menges
Edited byThomas Schwalm
Music byDennis Bovell
Production
company
Distributed byKino Lorber Repertory Seventy-Seven
Release dates
  • 30 October 1980 (1980-10-30) (United Kingdom)
  • 11 September 1981 (1981-09-11) (Toronto)
  • 8 March 2019 (2019-03-08) (United States)
Running time
95 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguagesEnglish and Jamaican patois with subtitles
Budget£300,000[1]

Babylon is a 1980 British drama film directed by Franco Rosso.[2] Written by Franco Rosso and Martin Stellman (Quadrophenia), and shot by two-time Academy Award winner Chris Menges (The Killing Fields), Babylon is an incendiary portrait of racial tension and police brutality set in Brixton, London. The film, anchored by Dennis Bovell’s propulsive score, is partly based on Bovell’s false imprisonment for running a Jamaican sound system, Sufferer’s Hi Fi, in the mid-70s.

Produced by Gavrik Losey and the National Film Finance Corporation, the film is regarded as a classic.[3][4]

  1. ^ Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 336
  2. ^ Paul Newland (2010). "We Know Where We're Going, We Know Where We're From: Babylon". In Paul Newland (ed.). Don't Look Now: British Cinema in the 1970s. Intellect Books. pp. 93–104. ISBN 978-1-84150-389-9.
  3. ^ Miguel Cullen, "30 years on: Franco Rosso on why Babylon's burning", The Independent, 11 November 2010.
  4. ^ Ann Ogidi, "Babylon (1980)", BFI Screenonline.