FARMING
****
Dir: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (18 101 mins)
A harrowing true story from writer/director Akinnuoye-Agbaje based on his own childhood where he was ‘farmed out’ of his native Nigeria by his parents and fostered by English parents ending up in Tilbury, Essex and a life of racism and self hate. Eni played by Damon Idris is berated for his skin colour in a deeply racist community, scrubbing his skin and covering himself in talcum powder to make himself white. Despite the best although insensitive efforts of his foster Mum played by Kate Beckinsale, he finds himself beaten and abused on a regular basis until a skinhead gang lure him into their ranks. The idea is that this will stop his own beatings, instead he now doles out beatings on other black men. Idris and Zephan Hanson Amissah who plays the younger Eni are excellent, as is Gugu Mbatha Raw as Ms Dapo and Joh Dalgliesh’s scary white supremacist. Powerful and disturbing, its message about the horrors of internalized racism and pointless, ill-informed hatred are depressingly timely.
Opens October 11
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