Rewarding Docs: BAFTA Shorts Double Bill

The Black Cop, directed by Cherish Oteka, explores the life and career of ex-Metropolitan police officer Gama ‘G’ Turawa, while The Palace, directed by Jo Prichard, finds the unique community of Elephant and Castle’s ‘London Palace Bingo Club’ bidding a reluctant goodbye to their social hub of 20 years.

Together, these two BAFTA nominees tell a story of the UK in the last 50 years: a country where we are still debating systemic flaws that were known about decades ago; which has failed its minority communities; and where spaces for the marginalised in society are not protected from the steamroller of ‘development’. But these two vivid portraits also celebrate the humanity and resilience of some extraordinary, ‘ordinary’ people.

Watch both films in your own time, available from 7pm on Friday 4 March to 11:59pm Monday 7 March and join the live Q&A at 7pm on Monday 7 March to hear Cherish Oteka and Jo Prichard discuss their work, hosted by documentary journalist, programmer, and lecturer Carol Nahra.

Screening as part of Bertha DocHouse’s Rewarding Docs: Non-Fiction Awards Season 2022.

On Monday the 7th of March we were joined online by Cherish Oteka and Jo Prichard to discuss their work. Hosted by journalist Carol Nahra.

About The Black Cop

Dir: Cherish Oteka/ 24 mins

This intimate portrait of Gamal ‘G’ Turawa, an ex-Metropolitan police officer, explores his memories of racially profiling and harassing black people and homophobia in his early career. Now an openly gay man, Turawa’s story is a multi-layered one and sits in the centre of three pivotal moments in recent British history, from the black communities’ resistance of oppressive policing, to the push for LGBTQIA equality and the aftermath of the west African ‘farming’ phenomenon, where white families took care of black children outside the remit of local authorities.

About The Palace

Dir: Jo Prichard /28 mins

Every day, on the top floor of an iconic 1960’s shopping centre near the heart of the city, hundreds of regulars take up their usual spots in the London Palace Bingo Club. Some come for the cheap dinners and the free tea and coffee, but many stay to relax, socialise, play bingo, dominoes, gossip, and party together. As this area’s billion-pound redevelopment nears its finish, the club finds itself the last piece of the old neighbourhood now sitting within a drastically altered picture, surrounded on all sides by gleaming towers of high-end apartments. The Palace film is a loud, emotional portrait of a unique community rooted in South London saying a reluctant goodbye to their social hub and playground of the past 20 years. Told through the stories of the regulars that loved and depended on it, and the owner who couldn’t save it.