Aug 19

Aug 19 Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe: Changing the Landscape of British Film

Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe, The founder of BUFF (British Urban Film Festival) which opens 1st September 2019, talks about his childhood dream of owning his own TV channel to the legacy of the festival.

“I started BUFF from a place of absence,” Emmanuel says, on his reason for establishing the festival. The journey began in 1999, where he discovered Black Cinema whilst a youth member at the National Film Theatre (rebranded as BFI Southbank). On a shelf in the foyer of the NFT, he found himself drawn to the cover of Black Filmmaker Magazine (BFM), with page after page celebrating black people on and off-screen. “ I picked it up and read all the way through. I read it again and again, thinking, this just unbelievable.”

Emmanuel attended the BFM international film festival (as it was known then) and immediately knew he wanted to be a part of it somehow, without steering away from his true aspirations.

“My big vision growing up was to have my own tv channel. As a child, I was a big fan of LWT, regional television. ITV. As a child you’re always impressed by big colours and the music. And that’s what ITV looked like in the 80’s.” he says. “To wind down, is to go on YouTube and go back and watch all these old programs like the 6’Oclock Show, It’s Alright on the Night, Rainbow.” “It was the inspiration to what BUFF would later become. If you look at BUFF now with all the idents, that’s where it came from.”

Under the stewardship of Menelik Shabazz and Charles Thompson MBE, Emmanuel worked at BFM for a few years, learning more about the industry and absorbing the plethora of black content. In 2003, Emmanuel lost his younger brother to lung cancer and was moved to curate a retrospective night of film to those we had lost in that same year. This curation was the first real stepping stone to BUFF, It was entitled ‘Nights to Remember’, which honoured Gregory Hines, Ron O’Neal and Lionel Ngakane.

Emmanuel recalls hearing about the Prince’s Trust Urban Music Festival in Earl’s Court, not far from Thames Valley University, where he was Acting Head of the ACS. He was able to raise some funds for a group of students to attend the festival, headlined by Will Smith and Akon. The arena, was distinctly full of black people from the attendees to the ambassadors and it occurred to him that there was no black film festival equivalent. This became the concept for the British Urban Film Festival.

“I was at BFM and just done Screen Nation with Charles Thompson in 2004, I took all that experience with me.”

So here he was with a blank sheet of paper with the idea to establish a platform that was truly representative of the urban community. He used his contacts over recent years to secure the venues, gain publicity and film entries. Emmanuel was on the lookout for “raw content, gritty stuff,” a taste he developed from one of his all-time favourite films, Nil by Mouth by Gary Oldman. A vital aspect of BUFF was to encourage filmmakers with a story to tell, to go and create with the confidence to know their films will be seen.

BUFF has had notable brands and industry people behind it which has enabled its fourteen year longevity from BT, London Live, Odeon and Met Film School to Aml Ameen, Riz Ahmed, Amma Asante and Ashley Walters. Following several meetings at Channel 4 with Ravi Amaratunga and Ade Rawcliffe, they agreed to host part of the festival for 4 years as well as all the launch days, “that really put us on the map.” The growing success of BUFF disproved all the myths about black and urban UK films not being marketable.

The strength of the films have grown year on year, Emmanuel says, with submissions from emerging and established filmmakers “who all feel comfortable in the same space. It’s not elitist at all.” As BUFF evolved, he realised that it was important to celebrate people from the industry who would not typically get recognised for their contribution to film and television. Honouring Noel Clarke’s 20 years in the industry at this year’s awards ceremony is something he is extremely proud of.

Creating content is an area heavyweights such as Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and now Apple are hugely invested in; producing great content is where credibility lies within industry. BUFF’s response to this wave was No Shade a film about colourism, its first feature film by Dr Clare Anyiam-Osigwe. No Shade opened the 2018 festival, going on to further screenings and picking up awards.

Emmanuel’s vision has always been to make a meaningful impact in urban film, from the root, up. A collation of workshops are on offer during the festival week, which will include How to Shoot a Feature Film on a Mobile Phone, How to Raise Finance for a Feature Film and How to Write a Feature Script, invaluable resources for getting your foot in the scene.

BUFF is well positioned amongst a number of festivals sprouting the tag ‘diversity’ . He concedes that there is definitely a need for more and there is enough space for all. However, he is also aware that he has laid a pretty solid foundation; he’s done the graft, people know the brand and what it represents.

“There’s a lot of flossing going on. My flossing is my legacy.”

It is clear from interviewing Emmanuel, that one of his defining traits is staying true to the dreams of the young boy raised by traditional Nigerian parents. His opportunities did not come by chance and BUFF was not created without the intensity and commitment to change the landscape of British film.