Yugesh Walia

BBC series exploring cultures around the world.

A sweet and poignant tale about a little girl who is desperately shy and longs for the confidence to play with other children and to be as popular as her Dad, the local ice-cream man. She uses her Dad as a shield against the outside world but in order to find her own feet she must leave this security behind.

Against the backdrop of Partition, independent India’s first hockey team defeats England, their erstwhile coloniser, to win the Gold at the 1948 London Olympics. Six decades later, when Nandy Singh, a member of this iconic team suffers a stroke, his tenacious struggle to recover, inspires his daughter to retrace his journey. Using archival footage and interviews with teammates, she reveals lives shaped by the Gold, and by Partition that made them refugees. Revealed also is a friend in Pakistan never spoken of before. Her journey in search of him morphs into a quest for the lost ‘watan’ (homeland).

Two children who feel sure they died terrible deaths and have been born again tell their extraordinary stories. Nicola, aged 12, lives in Keighley, Yorkshire, near to the railway tracks where she played in the 19th century in another life. Titu, aged 6, lives in north India in the shadow of the Taj Mahal. He alleges he was gunned down by a murderer

This keenly observed short reflects on the duality of a modern Asian woman’s life in 80s Birmingham

This documentary is constructed in two parts. Part one deals with the suppression of other ‘minority’ cultures, part two looks at the ways these cultures are fighting back. The film includes contributions from Prof. Stuart Hall (The Open University), Prof, Bikkhu Parekh (Commission for Racial Equality), Prof. Gwyn Williams (Historian/Author), Benjamin Zephaniah (Poet), teachers and children, with experiences of Gujarati, Caribbean, Creole and Welsh.

Walia joined the newly formed Birmingham Film Workshop in the early 1980s and quickly began work on this compelling portrait of the Handsworth Cultural Centre Organised through the probation service, the Centre provided an important space for Afro-Caribbean communities to meet, make and create.