Decolonisation and the Library: Video collections

The following are some of the key video collections the library holds relating to ethnicity, race, and the Global South. 

Border and Migration Studies Online 

This collection provides both written and audiovisual resources for historical background on more than 30 key worldwide border areas, including that of the US and Mexico; the EU; Afghanistan; Israel; Republic of Türkiye; Argentina; China; and Thailand. The archive includes over 175 hours of video. 

Latin America in Video 

This collection contains over 300 hours of original-language documentaries and current affairs video content. These videos were produced in Latin America, by Latin Americans, about Latin American issues such as human rights, violence, immigration, illiteracy, popular culture, and political history. As with other Alexander Street collections, search results can be filtered by subject, publisher, language and date, among others. 

Kanopy

Kanopy is an online streaming service which provides access to a library of 14,000 individual films, including independent, mainstream, classic, and documentary film. It contains a large library of world cinema, including a number of significant films from East Asia (including works by directors such as Wong Kar-wai, Kenji Mizoguchi, Edward Yang, Yasujiro Ozu, and Park Chan-wook) and South Asia (including films by Satyajit Ray and Mira Nair). 

It also includes key films in Black Cinema, including Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep (1978), Horace Ove's Pressure (1976), and Bill Gunn's Ganja and Hess (1973). It also includes more recent films including Straight Outta Compton (F. Gary Grey, 2015), BlaKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018), and Nope (Jordan Peele, 2022). Its documentaries include collections related to Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (including films about the key theorists Stuart Hall and bell hooks), through to documentaries about the Indonesian genocide and the Israel-Palestine conflict. 

Box of Broadcasts (BoB)

BoB is an off-air recording database and media archive. It holds a vast collection of recordings of television and radio programmes from the five main terrestrial UK channels and several more. Its holdings include a wide range of television drama, comedy, and documentary -- much of which will be of interest on the topics of decolonisation, diversity, and inclusion.

The library has curated a playlist of programmes to get you started -- keep searching for more! 

BFI Player

Explore the free collections of the BFI's online archive of over 10,000 individual film and video works, which include substantial collections on Black Britain on Film, Chinese Britain on Film, Disabled Britain on Film, Queer Britain, and Jewish Britain on Film, among many others.