BFI: Reflecting on Stuart Hall’s Impact

The British Film Institute (BFI) and the Stuart Hall Foundation present a look back on the impact of Professor Stuart Hall, through a screening and discussion featuring programmes Hall developed with CARM (Campaign Against Racism in the Media) and the Commission for Racial Equality.

Open Door: It Ain’t Half Racist Mum
BBC 1979. BBC Community Programme Unit in association with Campaign Against Racism in the Media. 29min. Digital

Language is the Key
UK 1985. Director Yugesh Walia. 39min. Digital

It Ain’t Half Racist Mum, produced for the BBC’s Open Door series, presents a rigorous deconstruction of racism in British media. It will be screened alongside a new digitisation of Language is the Key, an exploration of the relationship between language and power featuring contributions from Hall.

A panel discussion will take place after the screening, considering how Hall’s pioneering work on media remains essential for analysing the political and cultural dynamics of multiculturalism. Speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.

Tickets go on sale from 12pm GMT on Thursday 26 January 2026, and will cost £6.50.

Reflecting on Stuart Hall’s Impact is part of Constructed, Told, Spoken: A Counter-History of Britain on TV, a seasonal programme at the BFI exploring Afro-Caribbean and South Asian Britons’ use of television to advocate for political and social representation in postwar Britain.

Produced by the BFI in association with the Stuart Hall Foundation.

Image: It Ain’t Half Racist Mum