Peckham and Nunhead Free Film Festival 2017

This year's Peckham and Nunhead Free Film Festival is already underway - too late if you've missed vampire film Nosferatu being screened in Nunhead Cemetery, but there's plenty more to come over the next week. Highlights include A Plastic Ocean, a documentary about the impact of plastic pollution on marine and human life, showing this Thursday 7th September (8 pm) at Southwark Integrated Waste Management Facility off the Old Kent Road, and Raving Iran at Persepolis in Peckham on the following day (5 pm).  On Saturday at the Bussey Building there's all day Afrikans on Film Festival.


Full programme here, all events free of charge.

Music Monday: Ray BLK - Catford soul

There were lots of South London shout outs at Reading Festival last week including East Dulwich's Tom Misch, Croydon's Loyle Carner and in the Lewisham corner Ray BLK.

Nigerian-born and Catford-raised, Ray BLK (real name Rita Ekwere) was the winner of the BBC's Sound of 2017 award (for emerging talent) as well as Best Newcomer at the 2016 MOBO awards. She has been making music for a while, starting out with the Great Expectations inspired Havisham in 2015, but it was last year's Durt EP that really put her in the spotlight, in particular the track My Hood which features Stormzy.

She's followed it up this year with tracks including the latest single, Doing Me, and guest vocals on the Gorillaz album.

My Hood reflects her love/hate relationship with Lewisham- she wrote it after having her laptop nicked, and told BBC 'I was robbed around the time I wrote it and I honestly just wanted to leave. I was like, "I'm getting robbed. My neighbours sell drugs out of their house. It's not where I need to be." The lyrics reference Morleys chicken, the Blue Borough and Deptford's Pepys Estate:

Socks and sliders everywhere and every day
Full English breakfast at a caff, not a café
No, no, baby, we don't let strangers come our way
But you should come to my hood, my hood, my hood
Meet me at Morley's, best fried chicken is in South
I'll show you gangsters, don't you go running your mouth
Mopeds are racing, two AM outside my house, oh yeah, it's loud
But come to my hood, my hood, my hood...


Barely anyone at school after fifteen
We're chasing paper then Blue Borough should be green
I won't lie, finding a way out is our dream
But you should come to my hood, my hood, my hood
Top floor of Pepys estate, we'll show you our world
That building turns you to a woman from a girl

Pussy Riot in New Cross

Maria Alyokhina, who was jailed in Putin's Russia for her activities with punk collective Pussy Riot, is speaking at the Centre for Investigative Journalism at Goldsmiths in New Cross on Wednesday 13 September 2017.

Maria was convicted in 2012 of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” and sentenced to two years in prison. Upon her release she helped found Media Zona, an independent media outlet which aims to hold Russia’s justice system to account. She will be talking  about the reach of Russia’s official media in the age of Putin - and how to get around it. She has written a book, Riot Days, about her experiences of the Russian justice system.

The event takes place from 1:00pm-3:30pm,  LG02 PSH Building, Goldsmiths University, 8 Lewisham Way, London SE14 6NW. Admission is free, all welcome.

Full details here: http://www.tcij.org/events/2017-09-13/pussy-riot-russia’s-official-media-and-how-subvert-it

While she's in the area she might want to check out the painting of Pussy Riot in the Ladywell Tavern!