Moving Image Archive
Over 150 hours of moving image material documenting empire worker experiences in the Black Country in the 1960s and 70s — the largest such collection in the UK.
An archive built over a decade
Reimagining Industrial Migratory Stories CIC has, over more than a decade, amassed a collection of over 150 hours of moving image archive with a specific gaze on empire worker experiences in the 1960s and 70s. The material has been gathered from people's attics, archive centres across the UK, filmmakers' off-cuts, unscreened films, and wedding footage spanning decades.
The organisation has worked with broadcast archives including the BBC, ITN, and LWT, as well as specialist repositories at the BFI and MACE. The result is the most significant moving image collection about empire worker experiences in the Black Country region in the country.
This archive is not merely a repository — it is the primary research source from which Billy Dosanjh's photographic tableaux are constructed. The costumes, gestures, interiors, and social textures visible in works such as Dayshift, Seamstress, and the Paths You Walk series are all grounded in this body of primary moving image evidence.
Film reels from the RIMS CIC moving image archive
From the RIMS CIC moving image archive — over 150 hours of material
Where the material comes from
Television & Radio
Archival broadcast material from the BBC, ITV, LWT, and independent regional production. Much of this material has never been re-broadcast — documentary films screened once and forgotten.
Home & Wedding Footage
Super 8 and 16mm home movies, wedding recordings, and community event footage gathered directly from families across the West Midlands.
Unscreened Films
Rushes, off-cuts, and unscreened films from the BFI, MACE, and individual filmmakers. Material that fell outside the frame of broadcast.
Recordings & Testimonies
Audio recordings, oral histories, and interviews capturing first-hand accounts of migration and settlement in the Black Country.
Screening Room
A selection of material from the RIMS CIC moving image archive — home super 8 footage, broadcast documentary, and industrial film documenting the lives and workplaces of empire workers in the Black Country and West Midlands.
Year Zero, Black Country — trailer
Feature documentary examining post-war labour migration to the Black Country. Grierson & Derek Jarman nominated.
1965
A pivotal year in the story of South Asian migration to the Black Country. This film draws on the RIMS CIC archive to explore the experience of arrival, the industrial landscape, and the communities that formed in the foundry towns of the West Midlands.
1965 was the year the first Race Relations Act was passed in Britain, and the year Enoch Powell began his campaign in nearby Wolverhampton. The film situates personal stories of arrival against these broader currents — one of the earliest documentary treatments of the Sikh community in the industrial Midlands.
Directed by Billy Dosanjh
© Reimagining Industrial Migratory Stories CIC
"These settings form an important aspect of my films and photographs — not so much as backdrops, but as actual characters in the work."
Filmography
Alongside the archive collection, Reimagining Industrial Migratory Stories CIC has produced a body of original moving image work rooted in the same research.
We work with local crews — often untrained — who operate under experienced heads of department. This creates a network effect: promoting art, heritage, and creativity across a classically deprived region, building skills and opportunity where they are most needed.
Indi
BAFTA-qualifying short film · 2023
Financed by Film London and Arts Council England. Screened at Flatpack Film Festival 2023. A BAFTA-qualifying short that extends the themes of diaspora and industrial migration from the photographic work into narrative film. Directed by Billy Dosanjh.
Indi is a deeply personal film that bridges the documentary rigour of Billy's archive work with the magic-realist sensibility of his photographic tableaux. The film channels the isolation, resilience, and quiet grace of those who made the journey from South Asia to the industrial heartlands of England.
Watch Indi →Year Zero, Black Country
Feature documentary · 2012
Feature documentary examining post-war labour migration to the Black Country. Screened at international festivals and cited in academic studies of diaspora documentary practice. A foundational text for the organisation's research methodology.
Watch trailer on Vimeo →Heaven-Hell
Artist film · 2016
Artist film screened internationally. An essay film on memory, landscape, and the psychic cost of migration.
Watch excerpt on Vimeo →The Sikhs of Smethwick
BBC Four documentary · broadcast
BBC Four broadcast documentary exploring the Sikh community's role in shaping Smethwick during the post-war decades — including the 1964 general election, one of the most racially charged campaigns in British political history.
Watch excerpt on Vimeo →Working with the archive
The moving image archive held by Reimagining Industrial Migratory Stories CIC is available to researchers, educators, documentary makers, and community organisations working in the field of diaspora history, labour history, and Black Country heritage.
A phased programme of digitisation, cataloguing, and access is planned as part of the Paths You Walk HLF project. Community screenings and research residencies will be announced via the News & Updates section.
Teddesley Street, Smethwick, circa 1914. From the RIMS CIC archive collection.