Sunday, September 1, 2013

WE THE RAGAMUFFIN



Working with a purely improv script and local grassroots cast, Julian Henriques’s We the Ragamuffin provides a fascinating glimpse into the hybrid world of "ragga," gun play, and dancehall in the British-Carribean community of Peckham.
Two decades ago, Ragamuffin originally premiered at The Bouncing Ball club on Peckham High Street. Last Friday’s screening to a parking lot-full of Peckham’s newer inhabitants felt different to the director, but no less a celebration of cultural heritage—and a hommage in the face of ever-present gentrification.
“The audience has changed,” Henriques noticed. “For the new urbanites the film served as a little window to a past they mostly weren’t around for...That’s how gentrification happens. It’s not just happening in Peckham, but all over the world.”