Babylon

Babylon (1980)

Drama telling the story of Blue, a young man of Jamaican descent living in Brixton in 1980, as he hangs out with his friends, fronts a dub sound system, loses his job, struggles with family problems and has his friendships tested by racism.

Date of release
1980-11-07
TMDB
7.0 / 10 (51)
Runtime
1h 35m
Genres
Drama
Director
Franco Rosso

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: £300K

Babylon is a 1980 British drama film directed by Franco Rosso. Written by Franco Rosso and Martin Stellman, it is an incendiary portrait of racial tension and police brutality set in south 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-1970s.

Production

Babylon was filmed on the streets of Deptford and Brixton, London. The story centres on sound system culture and themes of police brutality, racism, poverty, and disillusionment with lack of opportunities.

Babylon was filmed on a six-week shooting schedule, entirely on location in South London and the West End. The production headquarters were above a rambling church in Deptford. The set was totally closed to visitors, including journalists, because of the film's sensitive subject matter and the fact that shooting was taking place in an area of London where there was racial tension.

The cast of actors were carefully chosen, with the help of casting director Sheila Trezise, Franco Rosso, and Martin Stellman, who all already had many contacts within the black community. Aside from the regular actors, there were many extras. The vast majority were West Indians living around the Deptford, Lewisham, Peckham, and Croydon areas.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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