Screenings in British Film Festival : SATURDAY

Following are capsule reviews of screenings in the American Film Institute’s BritFest during the UK/LA ’88 Festival.

‘HANDSWORTH SONGS’

Monicas, 6:30 p . m.

John Akomfrah’s startling film rises from the ashes of the 1985 riots in Birmingham’s largely West Indian suburb of Handsworth, to become a rich, multilayered perspective of the past 40 years of West Indians living in England. Using poetry, song, voice-over interviews and newsreel footage, Akomfrah builds an extraordinary portrait of endurance and anguish. Give the West Indian cadances a little while to settle in your ears; the final result is well worth it. “Hotel London” on the same program was not press screened. RECOMMENDED.