Who Needs A Heart is a parable of political becoming and subjective transformation and remains BAFC’s most controversial film. Akin to a sophisticated home-movie history, a record of life on the fringes in London between 1965 and 1975, the film explores the forgotten history of British Black Power through the fictional lives of a group of friends caught up in the metamorphoses of the movement’s central figure: the counter-cultural anti-hero, activist, and charismatic social bandit Michael Abdul Malik.

Dialogue is strictly a subsidiary element in Trevor Mathison’s allusive, inventive sound design; narrative emerges in snatches. Who Needs a Heart is a largely silent film whose soundtrack of Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Albert Ayler, Anthony Braxton, John Coltrane, and the ritual music of the Llamas and Tibetan Monks of the Four Great Orders investigates the expressionist potential of music to create the conditions for the movement of images.

Who Needs a Heart is presented as part of a focus programme on the work by sound composer and artist Trevor Mathison, who is part of the Black Audio Film Collective, a pioneering arts initiative founded in 1982 whose ground-breaking experimental works engaged with Black popular and political culture in Britain and Black and Asian diasporas.

Black Audio Film Collective, 1991, 78 min

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As there is a maximum capacity of visitors for all films, we work with free online ticket registration to make sure every visitor is assured of a seat during the film. To register for a seat, you will need to purchase a free ticket through our action code REWIRE#23 via the website of Filmhuis Den Haag.

• Go to Filmhuis Den Haag's website and click 'koop tickets' at the desired film;
• You then log in to use your action code. In the shopping cart, click on 'Wil je een actiecode invoeren? Klik hier'. Enter your code REWIRE#23 and click on 'invoeren'. You will now see the card type 'Action REWIRE' appear. Click 'bestellen' and 'afrekenen';
• You will receive the free e-ticket by e-mail;
• Access in combination with a 3-Day Pass or Day Pass.