'Daddy, how come I don't have good hair?'

Chris Rock's Good Hair to open 11th bfm international film festival

This year's bfm International Film Festival (7 November-10 November will open on November 6, with Good Hair, the award-winning, documentary co-written and produced by Chris Rock.

The film - a recipient of A Special Jury Prize, at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, - was prompted by Chris Rock’s young daughter asking, “Daddy, how come I don't have good hair?" Rock says: “She was only five at the time and she was already having concerns about her hair – she’s already having hair envy. I felt I needed to understand more deeply how these issues are related: African-American women and their hair”.

Good Hair includes firsthand, often hysterical, accounts of black women’s attitudes about their hair – and ultimately reveals their feelings about their own beauty and self-esteem. Rock visits beauty salons and hairstyling battles, scientific laboratories and Indian temples to explore the way hairstyles impact the activities, purses, sexual relationships, and self-esteem of the black community.

He was shocked to discover the financial investment black women make in their hair – many regularly spending thousands of dollars a year on the best extensions and weaves – and sitting in a salon for up to eight hours at a time to get it done.

* Good Hair is showing on 6 and 8 November as part of the http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/bfi_southbank/film_programme/november_seasons/11th_bfm_international_film_festival 11th bfm International Film Festival>