Interview: Speaking to the Director of 'The Hard Stop', the Important New Documentary About Mark Duggan and the London Riots

It's a film that every Londoner effected by the riots needs to see.

Images via LFF

In August 2011, 29-year-old Mark Duggan was pulled over by police in Tottenham in a 'hard stop'—an aggressive approach used when apprehending potentially dangerous suspects. Duggan was shot twice and died at the scene. A firearm was found around 10 feet from where he died, but neither Duggan's fingerprints or DNA were on it. His death caused the already frayed relationship between Tottenham's black community and the police, to explode, and led to the 2011 riots across London and England. In 2014, a public inquest into Duggan's shooting reached the verdict of 'lawful killing'.

A new d ocumentary  The Hard Stop, which is in cinemas July 15, follows Marcus Knox Hooke and Kurtis Henvill, two childhood friends of Duggan, in the two years following his death. Marcus was protesting outside Tottenham when the riots started, and has been accused as being the instigator of the violence. When the film starts, he’s on bail, awaiting sentencing for his part in the rioting. Kurtis on the other hand, is just a guy trying to hold down a job and get by.

By following the human stories, Amponsah manages to avoid preaching and gets to the real heart of the social conditions that lead to the 2011 violence. The film explores the history of the notorious Broadwater Farm estate where all three grew up, an area that 25 year earlier had seen the riots that lead to the death of police constable Keith Blakelock, and has never truly recovered from the scars caused by them. It's an important film that every Londoner effected by the riots needs to see. We spoke to the film's director George Amponsah about it when it screened at the London Film Festival late last year.

View this video on YouTube

youtu.be

How did the film come about—were you looking to make a film about the riots and Mark Duggan?

I wanted to make a film about something close to home—London, where I grew up. The two documentary features I’d made prior to that were both made abroad. I loved doing them, but I’m British, I was born here, and there’s something about my home turf, so to speak. And I wanted to do something with a little political importance. And it just fell into my lap. I was at a dinner party in 2012, and I got talking to someone who’s a community leader. The topic of the London riots came up, and I said I’d love to make a film about people who were at the epicentre of the disturbances. And she said "I‘ve got a pair of people who’d fit that description and I think they’d be interested in making that film".

How did you go about getting Marcus and Kurtis to trust you, to let you into their lives?

It wasn’t like I convinced them. It’s like how you start any relationship really. How do you convince someone to be your girlfriend?! They were very keen to tell this story. What I kept hearing at the beginning was “We want to set the record straight about our friend.” That’s all I needed to begin with. That’s my motivation to make the documentary. I’ve worked on a lot of sort-of TV ‘factual entertainment’ shows—Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Men, Vinnie Jones’ Toughest Cops, that sort of thing. You find a lot of so-called ‘hard men’ want to be movie stars, they want to be Al Pacino. And here were these two guys who weren’t like that at all. Marcus and Kurtis would ask “Why are you focusing so much on us? Why don’t you interview a high court judge, or a politician?” And I had to convince them that their lives were really worth paying attention to.

Facebook: video.php

In what way did the film develop in ways you didn’t expect?

Let’s talk about what I did expect. I did expect Marcus to go to prison. And I thought because we’ve go two people here, when one goes to prison, we’ll ‘defer’ to the other character, to Kurtis, and the story will be about him trying to do the right thing. I realised that I had a limited amount of time with Marcus. He had about four months, with a tag around his ankle, before he went to prison, to take me around the community, and tour the Broadwater Farm estate. What we didn’t expect was for him to only get sentenced to 32 months, which actually became just a year in prison. That was a pleasant surprise, based on the sentences people involved in the riots were receiving. Marcus being the person that was accused of being the person who started the riots, we thought that they were going to throw the book at him. He was looking at about eight years.

The other surprise was that the inquest [into Mark Duggan’s killing] took so long to come around. That was supposed to happen in 2012. It didn’t happen until 2014, by which time Marcus was coming out of prison. That was very unfair on the family, they’ve had to wait all this time to only get a lawful killing verdict. But from the point of view of the film we were making, it was perfect—by the time Marcus was coming out, the final inquest was about to be heard.

Marcus was at the epicentre of the riots, so making him a main focus of the film makes sense, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed the bits with Kurtis—he’s just a regular guy, trying to make it in the world…

My initial instincts were that these two guys were fascinating. Two characters that compliment each other, two sides of the same coin. The last thing you want is two characters that are doing the same thing, you know? Marcus is very much the reflective character. With him, the explosion has already happened before the story even begins. Whereas Kurtis, everything is of the moment. He’s a livewire, and there’s the feeling that things could kick off at any moment. And the dynamic between those two is one of things I’m most happy with about the film. 

Facebook: video.php

Being a Londoner yourself, this must have been somewhat of a personal experience as well...

I was born in London, always lived in London. I’m a posh boy from south west London, Chiswick! But I was very concerned to see my city up in flames—I only had to go half a mile to see the riots happening live. [MP for Tottenham] David Lammy said to me “Your film is something that should speak to everyone affected by the riots. Because everyone affected deserves to know why this happened.” Part of the answer to that question was this man, whose death sparked these disturbances. Mark was no longer with us, but I had access to two of his closest friends, who grew up with him. I thought you could tell something about someone from the company they keep, and we can get a view on what Mark Duggan was about.

The film goes back into the history of Broadwater Farm, to the rioting in 1985 and the deaths of Cynthia Jarrett (whose heart attack after a police search sparked the violence) and PC Keith Blakelock—are you old enough to remember that happening?

I was old enough. I remember thinking at the time that my worst nightmare would be to wake up on Broadwater Farm at night, during a riot. Broadwater Farm at that time was well documented as being one of the worst places to live in Europe. Whether or not that’s true, I didn’t know, but that was the perception.

So what was it like actually filming on the estate?

It was the experience of being in a community where you are an outsider. You’re kind of just stuck with your perceptions of the place. And those don’t really match up to what you’re seeing. You just look around and everyone seems to know each other. You just see youngsters playing on their bicycles. My guess is that its actually one of the safest places to be in London if you’re a five-year-old. Everyone knows each other, and everyone becomes your auntie and uncle. 

Latest in Pop Culture