This weekend on my day off I went to see the eagerly anticipated #BlackandBlueMovie starring Naomie Harris OBE and Tyrese Gibson. The latter is well known for the Fast and Furious Films among other things. Harris is perhaps best known for playing Miss Moneypenny in the Daniel Craig Bond films. Her character is the only Miss MoneyPenny in 25 Bond films to be played by a black actor and the first to have a first name, Eve.
The film tells the story of army vet, turned rookie cop, who in the first 3 weeks on the job witnesses a fellow officer committing multiple homicides. She is then framed for the crime and hunted down by crooked cops and criminal alike. 
The murderous crooked cop is convincingly played by Frank Grillo, who appears in Captain America: Winter Soldier and in Captain America: Civil War. So the film is not lacking well and successful known actors. 
Yet this was not a film that was shown at my local Odeon cinema in Chelmsford. The nearest cinema I could find a showing was 45 miles at Odeon Greenwich. Vue Cinemas were little better. I could have gone to Vue Birmingham to see it.
I find it astonishing that a film released last week starring a British woman in the lead role, who has an OBE for services to drama and film credits including 2 Bond films, 2 Pirates of the Caribbean films and playing Winnie Mandela opposite Idris Elba in Long Walk to Freedom is shown only in cinemas located in areas with high ethnic minority populations. 
Presumably only black people want to see films featuring mainly black people. It’s as if the film Black Panther never happened.
I don’t know where that decision got made, but it clearly got made. so no trailers fro the film would have been shown in Odeon Chelmsford, because they were never going to show it there. However, in Odeon Greenwich nearly all the trailers were for films that featured black actors.
We’re overdue a conversation about race. People who are not black, or who live in areas without large black communities are being disenfranchised by not even being offered a chance to see this film. and people like me who know about the film have to travel to see it.
This is the 21st century people. Why does it feel like we’re in the process of taking a number of backwards steps around race?
Go find the film in an ethnically diverse community near you. Better yet, ask your local cinema why they aren’t showing it.
I really enjoyed the film. you might not. But the point is your local cinema might like to give you the chance to find ou!.
Calvin T Samuel 