A short film that explores civil disturbances in Bermuda claimed a top prize at one of the world’s largest documentary festivals.

Bermuda Riots Are Different, co-directed by Matt Mead and Bermudian Alyson Thompson, screened at Sheffield DocFest this month and was chosen from among 100 other projects for the Make Film History Challenge to compete for a £1,000 prize.

The six-minute film contrasts visits to Bermuda by Queen Elizabeth II and former US President John F Kennedy with island-wide riots in 1968 and 1977.

The racially charged 1968 riots got sparked on April 25 during building social tensions in Bermuda, when Black people on Front Street were refused entry to a charity event by White organisers following the Floral Pageant.

The 1977 riots, the worst in Bermuda’s history, occurred after Larry Tacklyn and Erskine “Buck” Burrows were hung on December 2 of that year.

Burrows was sentenced to death for killing police commissioner George Duckett in 1972 and the murders of Sir Richard Sharples, the Governor, and his aide-de-camp Captain Hugh Sayers in the grounds of Government House in 1973.

Tacklyn was acquitted of the Government House shootings but both men were found guilty of the 1973 Shopping Centre murders of Victor Rego and Mark Doe.

Their deaths followed an unsuccessful campaign for their lives to be spared and marked the last executions anywhere under British rule.

A team of judges unanimously named Bermuda Riots Are Different winner of the Make Film History Challenge.

Ms Thompson, who recently received a grant from the Bermuda Arts Council, said: “Distantly sitting in the back of many Bermudians’ minds is the idea that some kind of revolutionary events happened around the middle of the last century.

“When I’ve spoken to younger generations about that history, this importance is felt, but the details are hazy.”

She added: “In this film I wanted to capture some of these events that shaped present-day Bermuda, from the incredible spectacle of the Easter Floral Parade to the sobering testimonies from the Pitt Report into the riots and civil unrest.”

Ms Thompson and Mr Mead are now developing a full-length documentary that will further explore Bermuda between 1968 and 1977.

Mr Mead said: “Hearing about how a small rock in the Atlantic could repeatedly be a global focal point from 1968 to 1977 was intriguing.

“It’s fascinating how the unique events that happened then were a microcosm for the big narratives of colonisation, politics and economics that shaped the modern world today.”

Bermuda Riots Are Different will be screened at other UK film festivals.

Members of the public can contact kitestixflix@gmail.com to share stories or photos of Bermuda between 1968 and 1977.