Black Lives Matter: Mama

The murder of George Floyd last month has sparked a wave of Black Lives Matter protests across the globe - and with such protests come renewed conversations around police brutality, discrimination, and racism in society. As a personal response to the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, Great Guns director Meena Ayittey has launched a harrowing new short, cataloguing the murders of innocent people in a way that doesn't shirk away from the violence affecting society. Entitled 'Mama', the film includes a powerful monologue from Arkansas State Senator Stephanie Flowers, and footage from police brutality across the US. The footage that we see of regular shootings of unarmed black men in the USA was more powerful than anything that I could film myself so I wanted to make that the main focus of the film. We have seen these police shootings so many times that it can be almost easy to become immune to the grotesque brutality embedded in these images. I wanted to catalogue the murders of these innocent people in a way that doesn't shirk away from the real violence that people in our society are experiencing. The fury and of the speech by senator Flowers held the exact level of intensity I wanted. Her words expressing her anguish for her son's life had a profound impact on me. For any black or brown person watching these images it's like watching a family member, a father, an uncle, a son, being killed again and again. I feel that both the media and police in the USA in particular, often dehumanise these victims. I wanted to reverse this. I wanted people to remember that George Floyd, Philando Castle, Rodney King, Eric Garner, Michael Brown Jr and all the victims of police brutality had mothers. And to feel that insurmountable and devastating loss that anyone would feel after the murder of a family member.” Alongside ‘Mama’, Meena has also debuted the trailer for her upcoming documentary entitled 'Black Creative: Race and the Advertising Industry'. The one-hour film will feature a collective of black voices revealing their experiences of working in a predominantly white industry that wants to be more inclusive.