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It seems the ICA is useful for more than being a really, really, really unsuitable venue for a grime night. Two interesting films were shown there today. I didn't go to see either of them unfortunately so I've been spending a while finding out what I missed.

The first is called Rent-A-Rasta. Here is some blurb from their website:

When white women flock to Jamaica for a little fun in the sun, the R&R they're often looking for is not 'rest and relaxation' but to 'rent a Rasta', according to director J Michael Seyfert. His eye-opening exposé sheds light on a barely acknowledged form of sex tourism: white women who visit the Caribbean to sleep with black locals - as many as 80,000 such women from a variety of relatively wealthy Western nations come to Jamaica every year according to this film. Framed from the perspective of the history of Jamaica, from slavery through the rise of the Rastafari to the present, we are shown a pattern of utter subjugation and economic inequality, with islanders providing stud service only being the latest form of exploitation.

The blurb makes it sound pretty interesting but the trailer looks awful I think. It makes the documentary look like a spoof - the cod-Caribbean accent, the borderline racist description of Rastafarians. It's like something Chris Morris might have knocked up in his time off between writing Brass Eye and starring in that so-called comedy, The IT Crowd.



The second is a documentary exploring the "long-neglected female side of reggae and dancehall music in Jamaica," called Queens of Sound. The subject matter could be a bit too Andrea Dworkin meets Oprah Winfrey for my liking but it stars people like Tanya Stephens, Macka Diamond and one of my favourite women-in-music-who-has-writtten-a-song-about-my-willy, Ce'Cile. I might try and track it down or something one day maybe.