This film is part of Free
Insaaf
An extremely unusual, deeply fascinating public information film - targeted at the South Asian community and filmed partly in Urdu.
Overview
Here’s a public information film with a difference - and a deeply fascinating one. Aimed at Britain’s South Asian community, Insaaf was filmed partly in Urdu. Produced through the COI for the Race Relations Board, it seeks to inform viewers of the Board’s role in enforcing the 1968 Race Relations Act, via the story of a young man denied a job he is qualified for due to the racism of his potential employer.
While the workplace scenes are in English, the film intercuts between these and the man’s family life, referencing the differing experiences of first and second generation British Asians (just as there is a spectrum of attitudes, roughly along generational lines, among the white characters). The film is well-intentioned but at times gauche –and all the more intriguing for it. The production company run by ex-advertising man James Archibald produced some of the most interestingly unusual sponsored films of the 1960s and ‘70s. This government film is a public record, preserved and presented by the BFI National Archive on behalf of The National Archives, home to more than 1,000 years of British history.
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