The Black Audio Film Collective was formed in Hackney, London in 1982 by John Akomfrah, Reece Auguiste, Edward George, Lina Gopaul, Avril Johnson, David Lawson and Trevor Mathison. It was one among many such collectives founded in Britain during the early- to mid- 1980s - including Sankofa, Ceddo and ReTake. This period was characterised on the one hand by the founding of Channel Four and the ACCT Workshop Declaration (both 1982), which encouraged innovative independent work, and on the other hand by the increasingly free market ideology of Thatcherism. The Collective was at the forefront of debates about the politics of representation: their work argues that'"their racial identities grow out of their social and political histories; they call for a recognition that these racial differences are multiple and complex... they interrogate their own images to confirm their histories" (Jackson and Rasenberger, p. 24).

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The Collective dissolved in 1998, though its members - most notably Akomfrah - continue to work individually.