I Am Judah screens at the Cube with talk and Q&A

Back in January 2017, shocking camera phone footage emerged showing Judah Adunbi, a 63-year-old grandfather and respected Rastafarian community elder, being tasered in the face by a police officer while walking his dog in Easton.

PC Claire Boddie was subsequently cleared of misconduct and to this day no police officer has been held responsible for the incident, which was apparently a case of mistaken identity and made national headlines.

Two years later, in April 2019, filmmaker Bashart Malik, poet and activist Lawrence Hoo, and producer Zaheer Mamon launched a crowdfunder for a community film project to tell Ras Judah’s story.

But I Am Judah is no campaigning film or exposé; rather, it tells a deeply personal story of identity, exploring Judah’s conversion to Rastafarianism in the 1970s and his decades of youth community work.

Also contributing is University of Bristol senior law lecturer, Dr Clare Torrible, who highlights the institutional bias and system failure that led to the incident.

“What researching this project has brought home to me is the fear that is engendered when people feel that the police are not held properly to account.” she says. “This film gives us an opportunity to start a conversation about what actions are needed to make change happen.”

Director Bash Malik and his focus puller on the set of ‘I Am Judah’

For Bash, completing the project has been “a huge fight, but we got there in the end. We endured a series of obstacles and painful experiences along the way, but it was important to tell this story without filters.”

Ras Judah consults his script

I Am Judah received its premiere at the Encounters film festival at Watershed on Saturday. But Bash was still editing his film early that morning.

With just six hours sleep in the 72 hours prior to the premiere, Bash was delighted to finally see I Am Judah up on the big screen in front of an audience.

“There were a few technical issues, but it looked good and sounded great. The audience reaction was incredible. Several people were in tears, including Judah’s nephew – who’s a Bristol hip-hop artist known as Kners.

“So it’s been really emotional. But Bristol needs to have this film and the discussion about accountability. Having said that, I don’t want it just to be a Bristol film.”

Filming gets underway on I Am Judah

Indeed, discussions are already taking place with two national distributors about getting the film in front of a wider audience. In the meantime, I Am Judah receives its second public screening at the Cube on Wednesday. The evening also includes a panel discussion about the issues it raises.

The panellists are Lee Lawrence, who was 11 years old when he witnessed the shooting of his mother Cherry Groce by police, sparking the 1985 Brixton riot; poet and educator Lawrence Hoo; social entrepreneur Dean Okai Snr; and former lord mayor of Bristol and prominent Justice for Judah supporter Cleo Lake.

For tickets and more information, visit www.headfirstbristol.co.uk/whats-on/the-cube/wed-5-oct-i-am-judah-79857

Film stills and behind-the-scenes images: Harmony Knights, Liam Morgan & Daniel Whitehead

Read next:

• Judah Adunbi: the long battle for justice
• Victim of Easton e-bike tower fire named as Abdul Jabar Oryakhel
• How a Bristol project to change the narrative of Black history has expanded in scope
• Bristol holds first exhibition dedicated solely to artists of Afrikan descent

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