itself already to pandemic, has valley affected setting all the quality which relies heavily on towards them and events like them. while there is no tradition of carnival in synagogue, there is tradition of using music costumes and dance to tell a shared history and get people moving to the beat of their culture. no matter where they're from. nicholas hawk al jazeera de carr ah, from under the top stories around g 0, the new and potentially more transmissible variant. if corona virus is continued to spread with cases now found in more than 10 countries. health officials around the world say on the tron is likely to be far more prevalent than that president of south africa where the via variant was 1st identified says it could be linked to a stock rise in infections and criticized the imposition of travel bands. we are

deeply disappointed by the decision of several countries to prohibit travel from a member of southern african countries including our own following the identification of the army corn variant. this is a clear and completely unjustified to departure from the commitment that many of these countries made at that meeting of the g 20 countries in rome last month. despite that criticism, more and more countries are bringing in travel restrictions that the strictest came into force half an hour ago. all foreigners are now barred from entering israel for 2 weeks. it's also re introducing mobile phone surveillance for people who are infected with the variant. the french interior minister says his country won't be held hostage by you k politics when it comes to migration. john domino was speaking at an emergency summit in cali after 27 people died,

trying to cross the english channel last week. he says france wants to work with the u. k, but it must take responsibility by making itself less economically attractive for migrants. poles have stayed open at past the official closing time in honduras as the country chooses, its next president. walden, 5000100 urines, are eligible to vote in the election to replace president one, orlando hernandez. his time in office has been played by chronic unemployment allegations of corruption and waves of fleeing migrants. quote, to being counted in kyrgyzstan, parliamentary elections a year after a disputed election led to political turmoil. the number of seats up for grabs has been reduced by president salvage of her off from a 120 to 90. those that up stories do stay with us for a studio b unscripted bye for now. a master pro democracy movement, violent crackdowns assassinations, and you imposed sanctions?

all talk, dixon struggled with ensued when the 2020 bella roost in presidential elections. that shook the country, self proclaimed, dictate the seat of power. and now new tactics, migrants, people in power investigates the humanitarian disaster on to rivaling on europe's borders and asked what's next and the battle for bella. bruce are just eda ah, in those early days it was a real battle to do something other than what i was supposed to do. because i was a fan of the faith that rock music ship have. my name is skin m m, the leasing. and so i saw a multi 1000000 selling pretty short band scanner. see, i'm also at the d. j as one of the few black women in the rock industry. i passionately believe that music is a force that can break down barriers and move beyond stereotypes about race and gender. the biggest surprise, even after 30 years of filmmaking,

is people's expectations of what you can actually do. yeah, that's what they think you can do. i'm going to chatter, i'm a writer, director, producer, the wide or mac cameras lovely with the clouds. i have spent my career making films about people that looked like me who are under represented all of the screens and often on the margins of our industry jobs. the whole reason i came into making films was because i wanted to challenge the fact that we were absent from the screen and therefore absent from history for me, writing about politics or writing about teams can things reading was just writing about my perfect spirit. we are the recorders of all voices as people, the diaspora and because they're, they're, they can't be taken away. ah,

so you have said that music has no boundaries of the sea. you were a bit of an anomaly at that time. no one could put you in a, in a category. you would be jazzy, you would be ballads, you would be punky, you'd be natalie, you'd be everything. right. and did you find that you were able to channel some of your political sort of anger into music? i mean, you know, for me the way i will talk about music and politics and why we do one about why some of our songs of political. it's because for me the most effective political sofa come from per se experience like i saw a little tiny swastika half way a pool. and in my head on my little baby, forced to go on the wall. and that was our very 1st little single because the question is, who put little babies for school? it looks like it was the 1st one could be more than 4 years old. and in that way i

talked about the rise of fascism and rise of white supremacy at that time. i mean some of those, those issues i'd grown up with because in bricks and they will come down no bars. that's right. the black people up where they could see them. yeah, i'm in there. been a whole big fight in the middle. the street. yeah. i'm and so it came from matt and for me, writing about politics or writing about political things really was just writing about my past experience force. first. one of the things i'm really interested about is if you've done some hugely popular movies at the same time, the method of your work, it remains strong and prevalent in every thing that you do. i mean, how have you managed to stay radical in the mainstream? just by being a director yeah. in our business is a radicals things, but it may present for me, prisoner and whenever i write to film and then try and get it made. if the lead

as a person of color, it was a struggle. yeah. it would be much easier for me to make feels about white people. yeah, but of course, that's not what i'm going to do because the whole reason i came into making films was because i wanted to challenge the fact that we were absent from the screen and therefore absent from history so many ways. now i feel that the films i've made of love that years have been a recording of our life and our presence in britain. so my 1st film, i'm british part, that really was just me wanting to express the fact that, you know, we come from a long history in a long relationship with britain. yes. not just our parents coming off the boat as it were, with her whole colonial. i'm higher. exactly. and then with banjo, the beach, i made a decision that i wanted to make commercial films. i didn't want to my art house films because i felt our house there was only gonna be seen by academics and yeah.

and certain people who are all in the same circle. yeah. and i wanted to create films that would be seen by everybody because i wanted to show our store is basically and so with barge on the beach, i decided to tackle black in asia. chris h it shit about which has to be at the time and i can only imagine argument for the full force of you to get those movie made and get those topics. keep us up exam not get water down. yeah, i mean even been delight beckham in m, i may say is such a struggle to get made 3 years and yeah, people just didn't believe that it was commercial that anyone beyond other indians who might like football, would be interested in it. but as a keep saying that phil is not about football, and that is a film about racism and what the father went through and how he's trying to protect his daughter from racism. whereas the daughter saying, you know,

well i got to go out and fight it myself and do my own stuff. you know, i think sometimes the story that gets told is how hard it is and how unsupported by parents. but at the same time, to load incredibly supportive. yeah. well that and to my dad, beth of my parents, my mom was just obsessed with me, letting us go indian food throughout my childhood. but i was my dad and in some ways that was me. but what was important about that film was the fact that it was a seek family. yeah. and the film came out just after $911.00. and it, i think i really do believe that it, you know, it did a lot in terms of race relations. certainly in britain, i remember before the film was a hit. i was a screening in manchester and i'd gone up to introduce the film. and it was a really interesting audience because his weren't that many asians there. but the people were there. i notice of families who bought their own crisps thing is people

pool. right. and anyway, they all sat there watching the film and then after a people smiling at me and then this one women, i'll never forget her english women. she came up 3. she was wearing white shirt and white stilettos. and she said to me, you think you made a comedy avenue? and i said, well, i try and use humor it. but she said, you then what you've done, what you've done for people around here is previous or they just had the older riots, whether it been completed for atlanta community and the english community. and it had been at loggerheads there and she said, what your film taught us is that everyone wants the best for their kids. exactly. does it matter who you are? yeah, it was specific. his and that woman had stayed with me because in a way that is what i was trying to do, you know, with, with my film, like just the wow. if i never make another film again, you done, you don't, i,

i did get want to make you feel that was a very hard feel for me to make and it was cool, viceroy house. and it was about the partition of india. yeah. so i wanted to move a bit away from england, which is, i mean, people really don't know a lot about by and why it was done and how it was done. yeah, 9047 was independence and then partition was happening. 47, it basically britain before britain left divided india and created pakistan. and in my film, i put for the theory as to why that happened. it was to do with the beginning of the cold war and american and british interests. the film was quite a tragic film because it was about refugees. and what happened to my ancestors and my grandparents and making it as a british person was also interesting because it is a british film. and i did have the mouth battens as well. and most of the film was about partition made in india, you know, are very violent and very angry. yeah. rightly so. you know,

but being british filmmaker i had to take it and it was different. yeah. energy to different. and also i think the other thing is being a mother as well, by that point i've had my children so that maternal thing came in where i just felt like enough already enough hatred and pain and division. and so i try to make a very healing film in film and music in writing all the creatives. the point is to try and get to be better. and sometimes you have to highlight that in ways that make people feel very, very uncomfortable. and certainly within some of the songs i've done that kind of swearing, you know, it's because it's like, yeah, this is, you know, this is our reality and in some of our magazines so that people can try and understand how it is from our perspective. yeah. i think in terms of being radical in terms of making it mainstream, you know, is it focused on hookey little bit populous to it? yeah. when you're kind of in the preaching to the converted watch,

here are the ones that you're trying to reach, you know, trying to reach a broader spectrum of people. so you can actually the songs and if matters can get out there and can have a really strong effect. it just when people feel uncomfortable, they call it radical. a slave like black women, they think were aggressive because we have a strong point of view or because we tend to stand marin demand off space there. and she stand by the fact that i don't think any of complementary thoughts about radical or very extreme. some of them are cry for help and some of the kind of like look what's going on was always you, can you not see, we're trying to find a different way to express something that has been expressed since bob dylan, you know, so yeah. marvin gaye, you know, yeah, public enemy, there's so many bad. so many artists that have written things in political ways. how do you touch people? and i think again, it's just to find a unique in a personal way to talk about actually my last film. blinded by the lights were based on a memoir by suffering,

missouri who grew up in the island just sort of 25 miles after looted an industrial town. and it's based around job. it's a kid who's feeling really kind of c in luton with his parents, with the national front. and so many people come up to me and said, how much they cried through that film because it's sort of expresses something that you can't put down. it expresses all reality because there's so few people to do that in the, in our industries and in the world of art, if you like, you know, when you see it there and people respond to it is, is an emotional experience. i think the one thing about bri spring saying that he's a wonderful translate of emotions. yes, i find may he's the difference between me all bri spring too. is that is how we translator. well, i remember when i showed him the film, i was very nervous, but at the end of the film he came out when he gave me a big hug and a kiss. and he said, thank you for looking after me so beautifully. so i was kind of nice. yeah. the

ultimate thing really is that when we were doing it, when we were creating, we were struggling and we were angry with like, why can't we does, why can't we? where's our space now to have our space? yeah. yeah. but a lot of energy doing that, but now looking back and seeing the work and like you writing the book, you know, i have this tremendous sense of achievement. because at she, we did, we were subversive. we made in road and was, and still it was not the thing is, is to just acknowledge for a minute that we are the recorders of our voices as but as people of the diaspora and, and, and because they're there, they can't be taken away. exactly. i mean, in those early days when i'm, i'm, you know, i'm the skinny black go leasing on a rock brand. and i was looking at me like really,

really because what i think what music is is by from often to city, be reeves got be true, risk or be cool. i'm so i, in those days people would look at me think, well it can't be authentic. it can't be real because this isn't the face of rock music that we want to have. so it's like a big boulder and you're like handing me your boulder rate is for me to carry. no, my i choose. i don't know. you can have that back. yes, exactly. you remember my shoes are cleaning clear, you know, i don't know how you'd have to carry the weight of your races. yes, that's so true. if i finally got to this plan of joy and happiness, you know, 26 years old is quite late. really trying to record label i'm. i was really happy. i'm fun. i'm finding not media back up singer is what has come being pushed into. i'm and i that was my approach to it and i will say this when i work with kids, i would say, just don't take you on into your own share it. yes. and the book, my writing, the was, i was pitching a young go like

a young version of myself. what was she want to be totally in the book is all about you know, the lessons, i've learned the things i've, i've been told and that was one of the major things i want to face it to kids. now it was like, you know, you're fine. they have the problem, i don't carry other people's wait a minute, you get way down, you stop what you're doing and maybe one exactly. my point of that where i learned that was in 2002. yeah. and bend it, like beckham, came out in america, and the new york times described the film as at this isn't the authentic voice of living in britain today. if that's because they, the idea they have of asians in, you know, is not playing football. how would really have the goal is a blue song about a sailor to an asian woman who made a film about our upbringing. i mean, i talk about it because i think he's probably quite mortified yet. he wrote her quite mod for the i repeat it quite a lot. yeah. but that was

a real turning point for me is i so they thought, wow, you can't win. don't try and win. don't try to be on their level. yeah. be on your own level to and can on a, don't take it on and therefore i think in what we create is really about ourselves . i mean, i think the simple, most difficult thing that's happening now is that we don't, we grew up in an environment where we didn't, you didn't have to read those was do you picked up newspaper, social media, you cannot get away from people's opinion. yes, it's just in your face punch in your face. non stop. no wonder if we could have having so much difficulty terminate. mental issues dealing with this on to raj of negativity, people negative. how can you carry that way? i mean, i would just be like asked if i could, i could just leave the room when you come to me with your nonsense. we need to increase the rooms in your pocket. yeah. and you harriet like a nic and wait with you wherever you are. so he, i'll, sir, is meditation,

fiances when 5 minutes a day, just meditating about your own strengths, who you are, what your purposes in life, what you're here to do, what you're here to cray, who you love, who loves you, do just the fat people. and then everything else, any haters out there, you know, i can for find down the toilet. i. i more social believe in just not reading it because i mean, i don't even know you've been in the business for a long time. yeah. if you are, you still have quite a famous game for things you do. like easier now, do you think bigger things seem to be more diverse? you know, do you think is easier to make your fills? you know, as it is just a subtle, i think it's just harder to speak. so they're not going to corrupt you say we're not making a film because your black asian writer. yeah. sure. our audience was going to like it. yeah, it'll just be. yeah, it will just be more unique. can we think about some a different casting?

yes. can you me add another story as a way in for the audience that will just be different words talking of the audience? few i did there. i think i think it's question time make it? yes. hi. hi. my name is natasha. my question is it for grinda? i was wondering, do you write your characters and stories with complete freedom or do you feel maybe unfairly that they come to be represent tips and in that sense carry the burden of portraying south asian communities positively like defending the cultures or breaking stereotypes, the audiences and how do you cope with if you, if you do feel it? well, i think early on. yeah. i think i did feel what we call the burden of representation. but you just have to be authentic, i think. but as the years go past, you realize there are, as in as a writer in as a director, there are films that you want to make in their films that you don't, you know,

i don't necessarily like how uncertain tv station in england lives always stories about you know how i was killed by my father, my brother type dramas, because in a there. so reductionist, i think, you know, so what i try and do is counteract what's already out there. that's not to say, don't hide from serious issues, but try and create 3 dimensional characters who are dealing with stuff. but i trying do it from a way that doesn't make us the victim. and i think that's the problem when you're working in a world in an industry that has so many ideas of who we are and what we represent, i e, backwards um, no educated or whatever my job is always to join a redress that. but what i also try and do is create characters that, that my own community can recognize and feel as authentic. but also

our universal is inno film is seen by everyone around the world. you know, so it's important for me that you know that you find that thing that makes us universal as well as specific hello my name is learning, gosh, i'm north africa. so my question is, as our youngest you, them, when in your begin is in your career, who was there present? would you look up to and you got this fired by? well, so i saw. yeah, i think the person, his voice, i think meant so much to me in her writing. was there maya angelou mean christ, the bravery and the poetry, but this amazing ability to deal with all the crosses she had to bear and come out, shining to me. she remains a huge influence for me. the 1st so could i have bore as she was in nina simone.

michael and i'm, i took it home and i was allowed to listen to it for a few few months because the local play was in a nice room of the house and my mom used to lock. you know, the good the room and i sat them. i played it 10 times in a row, and then i followed nina. someone's career for my whole life. and i she ended up meeting her. i now some a little say it's your birthday party. we sang happy birthday. you that test. i don't to sing down. i'm in the hotel bar off to with on this hung out with i will not. and i remember center, you know, you the 1st we could, i have bull and, you know, just in terms of has a math is the voice she didn't. so the thing is, you know, she was 19 years old because she was trained to the classical pianists and she couldn't get into the classical classical school that you want to get into. so she end up singing in balls and you know, and she and the late 20 came very political works from incredibly poignant

political souls. i'm as an assay, she's the artist i keep going back to because there's always something more there i'm. so for me, i would say that's probably the artist as most inspired me. hello. hi, my name is lindy where, so i really, really wanted to just hear your thoughts on what can be done to achieve a greater depth of anti racist e colonial work in educational spaces, you know, all the way from early years through to university. i mean, i would say 1st and foremost, to not put up with it. you know, i think that live before, but my mother even with just the recent thing, there was a culture of like, oh, we'll just do with this. we'll just let this one go. and then the next one will try and slowly, slowly, and i think now for us to fix, if things that we can do is just shut it down. if we see race is behavior, we want to have a conversation about that to actually expose it and to talk about it. i don't think

necessarily we used, we need to weapon isaiah. i don't think we need to do, you know, have a thing of destroying people and counseling people. i just think that is good to highlight it, deal with it, put it forward, make it in front of the conversation. so people can understand what's wrong because sometimes people don't really get it straight away and there's a lot of unconditional that has to happen. so i think to do it in a lot like a productive positive loving way. but i think yeah, it need this the so much the rise of racism, fascism and why scripts is going up and up and up. i'm, i think is not the time to kind of almost, you know, tap around and do delicately. i think, you know, it's time we need to spot and shut it down and so that people can see about something's going to happen. and it makes people kind of think twice before they say, or they act, they do certain things. but i do think it as a said, it has to be in an open conversation,

a positive way. not just like jumping and pouncing someone that was very aggressive way because sometimes people just make mistakes or they just don't understand or they're just not there. and in addition to what it is saying, in terms of the teaching, i think it's up to educators now to start using the materials that are properly representative of the subjects that you're teaching. and i think that in terms of film, there are so many wonderful films that we're going back, revisiting lot battle of algiers, for example. either will you go back? can you talk about the issues raised in the film and how pleasant they are? for example, today and what's going on in france to day. so i think the film to feel made by filmmakers from different backgrounds about their own history is also a great way to combat prejudice and racism. or if you have been the most wonderful, incredible experience. so taught you the money to scan,

it's just been wonderful. i'm. i'm sad. we haven't met in the past, but it's been wonderful to share all these experiences. upbringings and, and time in london the year that we went miles apart from each other. exactly. so interesting to hear that will help you with, with so connected by a time in a period is like from your memories or music that you've talked about. yeah, some of your influences, i remember about 2 that was at this time. so i'm going to go and sing now in a recording studio from quite inspired for excellence. have the feeling of this moment that we've been able to talk with me. we come from a timer generation. when what matter? denart was to be radical. today. what the hell does radical meat arctic is, are being used to make cause satisfaction of the brochure war. our

society for the rich and the powerful picasso in his late life, said something wonderful painting is not decoration for your living room. painting is oh, step beyond the comfort zone. where assumptions are challenged, traveled to the ends of the earth, and further experience the unimaginable of the people who live it is probably the most extreme situation i've been involved in. how quickly things contract award winning documentary is that also a perception witness on a, just the euro. this is al jazeera is november the 15th day,

one of the new era and television news. if you have known that, that was the scale of bloodshed would you have still going to go to miss all landed about a 100 meters away from us. we're on the front line, but it's on the call that isn't on the very real. it is coming. our way i was just over here god, by the police on purpose. ah, you with alex is 0 is offices in garza. our house in that building has come down. little before in human history has the once prestige environment of the arctic in such peril. we understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world. so no

matter what lucy does, laura will bring you the news and current affairs that matter to you. how does in europe, ah, these restrictions are completely unjustified and unfairly discriminate against our country. south africa, the president calls on government to scrap travel bands and instead focus on vaccinating the world against koby. 19 more cases of the micron, very 1st identified in south africa, are appearing globally as investigations continue into how dangerous it is. ah, hello i'm. this is just in

a live also coming up france declares it won't be held hostage by british politics on migration after christ.