The film is devoted to one of the founders of British Cultural Studies, an outstanding sociologist, journalist, teacher and activist Stuart Hall.
Stuart Hall was born in the colonial West Indies and grew up in Kingston, Jamaica. In 1951, he won a scholarship and went to study in Oxford, but, despite his education and the successful career that followed, he always felt an outsider in the ‘white’ English society. John Akomfrah’s documentary focuses on the theme of racial, ethnic, and social identity in Hall’s theories and in his life. With archival footage, excerpts from many interviews and TV-appearances, and a soundtrack by Stuart Hall’s favourite musician Miles Davis, the film presents a portrait of a brilliant intellectual of his era: a minority rights activist, a thinker who pioneered Cultural Studies as an academic discipline; the founder of New Left Review, which is still published today; a son, a husband, a friend and an outstanding person.
In 2007, Adjaye Associates designed the building for Rivington Place, a visual arts centre in London, home to the library and archive of the Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva)—a research and cultural institution, where Stuart Hall was the Chair of the Board for many years.
The Stuart Hall Project
Director John Akomfrah, 103 min, UK, 2013