Why “Walter Rodney: What They Don’t Want You to Know” is the Film We Urgently Need Right Now

by Mell P

In a moment when democratic norms are fraying, surveillance is tightening its grip, and racism in policing continues to intensify across the globe, a new documentary reaches backward, into the life of one of the most incisive thinkers of the 20th century, to illuminate the present.

Walter Rodney: What They Don’t Want You to Know, directed by Arlen Harris and Daniyel Harris-Vadja, is far more than a biographical film. It is a powerful excavation of buried truths, a meditation on the personal cost of revolution, and a guidebook for understanding the world we’re navigating today.

For the first time, Walter Rodney’s widow, Dr. Patricia Rodney, speaks publicly about the emotional and psychological toll of her husband’s 1980 assassination in Guyana, an act widely understood to have been politically orchestrated. Her voice anchors the film in lived experience, grounding the geopolitical stakes in the intimate reality of a family shattered.

Surrounded by contributions from Angela Davis, Gina Miller, former Guyanese President Donald Ramotar, Rodney’s siblings, his widow, and leading historians, the film weaves together testimony, archival footage, and transnational political history to reintroduce viewers to a man whose ideas remain startlingly relevant.

The film premiered to a sold-out audeince of 450 at the British Film Institute’s largest screen.

Why the Film, Why Now

For director Daniyel Harris-Vadja, the urgency of telling Walter Rodney’s story is not theoretical, it’s written plainly across today’s headlines.

“This is a really important time to tackle this story,” he says. “We’re seeing an increase in authoritarianism and an increase in racism within policing. One of the main ways to change those narratives is by telling accurate history.”

That emphasis on accurate history runs through the entire project. Harris-Vadja argues that societies around the world are suffering not only from disinformation, but from the deliberate erasure of their own pasts. Rodney, he says, is the antidote to that.

The historian was a bridge-builder between continents, ideologies, and communities. Long before “intersectionality” entered mainstream vocabulary, Rodney was analyzing colonialism, capitalism, race, policing, and development as part of the same interconnected system. His insights help us trace present-day crises back to their structural roots, something the film spotlights with clarity and immediacy.

“One of the things we realized while making the film,” Harris-Vadja adds, “was that the man responsible for assassinating Rodney was from the UK. That’s a part of history we need to discuss. Colonial techniques developed abroad have a very long shelf life, and they were transported back into Europe to be used against multi-ethnic communities after independence.”

Through Rodney’s story, the film unthreads those historical continuities, showing how past colonial structures continue to shape modern policing, surveillance, and state power.

One of the film’s most compelling behind-the-scenes dynamics is the collaboration between Daniyel and his father, Arlen Harris. Filmmaking is often fraught with tension, but here it becomes an intergenerational act of political storytelling.

“We just make a great team,” Harris-Vadja says, reflecting on how their different skills merge seamlessly. “My dad is an excellent research journalist and producer. I’m more visually and technically oriented. We fill in each other’s gaps.”

The partnership allowed them to complete a deeply ambitious film on a lean budget and a tight ten-month timeline. They worked closely with the Rodney family at every stage, sharing early cuts and shaping the narrative collaboratively. That trust makes the film feel intimate rather than extractive.

Despite working without adequate funding, and in Harris-Vadja’s case, without pay, he persisted because of the reactions he witnessed during early screenings.

“People told us how beautiful it was to see their history represented. That doesn’t happen often,” he says. “And every time I wanted to give up, those reactions reminded me why this story matters.

Rodney’s Message and Why It Resonates in 2025

At the core of the film is a deceptively simple question: What happens to a society when its educators and truth-tellers are silenced?

Rodney believed deeply in political education as a revolutionary act, one that could unite people across divisions intentionally imposed by those in power. That conviction is strikingly relevant today, in a moment defined by attacks on universities, book bans, classroom censorship, and escalating political polarization.

“When people learn more, it becomes easier to see through the bullshit,” Vadja-Harris says plainly. “Right now, groups who’ve never questioned their political choices are suddenly feeling the consequences. They’re waking up, especially in the classroom.”

He also points to the Caribbean as an example of how internal divisions, particularly those between Black and brown communities, continue to undermine shared political goals. Rodney spent years writing and organizing against those divisions, arguing that unity was the only antidote to structural racism and inequality.

“Those divisions only help white supremacy,” Harris-Vadja says. “This has to stop.”

A Film That Connects Global Struggles

Though rooted in Guyanese history, the film feels universal. Its exploration of policing, colonial legacies, and political repression mirrors struggles in the U.S., the UK, Brazil, South Africa, France, and beyond.

Rodney’s life becomes a lens through which we see how systems reproduce themselves, and how communities can resist. His voice, resurrected through archival footage, feels eerily prescient:
warning us, teaching us, urging us toward a different future.

The filmmaking landscape has grown increasingly hostile to politically charged stories that challenge state power. Substantive films without corporate backing struggle for funding and visibility. That makes Walter Rodney: What They Don’t Want You to Know even more remarkable.

It isn’t simply a documentary, it’s a tool, a mirror, and a warning. It invites viewers to examine how colonial techniques outlived colonialism. It challenges us to see policing and surveillance as part of long historical arcs. It shows the human cost of speaking truth in a world built on silence, and it reminds us that radical educators are often the first targets of repressive states.

At a time when global democracy is under pressure, this film equips audiences with the historical clarity we desperately need.

Catch the film at Cinema Village on December 10, during the African Diaspora International Film Festival (ADIFF). It deserves a full house, and we deserve the truth it brings.

Here’s a sneak peek into the film: