Our Version Media is beyond excited to announce a new partner for our Black In Focus film nights.
We’ve teamed up with Southampton’s Harbour Lights Picturehouse – a stunning waterfront cinema based in the city’s scenic Ocean Village.
New venue, same powerful ethos: showing Black British films that aren’t the usual negative stereotypes.
Black In Focus, Southampton’s only Black British film (genre) night, is described as a refreshing change from the harmful, negative black narratives often pushed by mainstream cinema. There’s just one rule for the films we show: no gratuitous black trauma!
We launched Black In Focus in 2022 in partnership with Mayflower Studios, welcoming audiences who were hungry for films that weren’t centred on the same old, tired tropes of gang violence, drug dealing, slavery, and black struggle.
Our new partnership with Harbour Lights Picturehouse means a new home for our growing Black In Focus audience and the opportunity to bring uplifting and more nuanced Black British film to more people.
Veronica Gordon, founder of Our Version Media said: “Black In Focus is the result of my decades-long battle with cinemas in Southampton. It used to really bother me that they’d always show black films about slavery, gang crime, and black trauma – yet would rarely show black comedies, dramas or films about black love. I’d call them up – and call them out – and demand those films and they’d put them on at stupid times like Mondays at 11am, then claim there was no demand. It was so frustrating.
“Finally in 2022, thanks to our partnership with Mayflower Studios, Our Version Media was able to host our own film nights – and every one was an incredible experience! Now, with a growing audience, we’re excited to move to Harbour Lights. We finally have a cinema who shares our vision – and a space where our audience can enjoy films in a real cinema setting.“
Mat Guy, General Manager at Harbour Lights added: “I’m really excited. It’s been something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, to get more communities using the cinema and feeling like it’s their space so, this is just great. It’s such an exciting opportunity.”
Speaking about Black In Focus’s ethos, he said: “It’s important to show all aspects of people’s experience and I think sometimes it can be too easy just to stereotype communities in certain genres. We’ve had so many films over the years that have defied those odds and been completely and utterly the antithesis of what you think when people talk about movies of this that or the other. We like to go against the flow and celebrate and highlight film-makers that do things differently, that just reflect normal life and normal people.“
We’ll celebrate this exciting new chapter with a relaunch of Black In Focus on Thursday 26th June – starting with a welcome reception and followed by the film, Hard Truths.
Black In Focus Relaunch and Film, Thursday 26th June 2025
Join Our Version Media and Harbour Lights Picturehouse at the cinema on Thursday 26th June, at 6pm, for the relaunch of Black In Focus. The film for the evening will be Hard Truths. Book here: Black In Focus presents: Hard Truths.