The Help is a 2011 American period drama film directed and written by Tate Taylor, and adapted from Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 novel of the same name. Featuring an ensemble cast, the film is about a young white woman, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, and her relationship with two black maids, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson, during the Civil Rights era in 1963 Jackson, Mississippi. Skeeter is a journalist who decides to write a book from the point of view of the maids (referred to as “the help”), exposing the racism they are faced with as they work for white families.

The film stars Viola Davis, Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain, Ahna O’Reilly, Chris Lowell, Sissy Spacek, Mike Vogel, Cicely Tyson, LaChanze, Allison Janney, Mary Steenburgen, and Anna Camp. Produced by DreamWorks Pictures and released by Touchstone Pictures, the film opened to positive reviews and became a commercial success with a worldwide box office gross of $216 million[2] against its production budget of $25 million.

The Help received four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress for Davis, and Best Supporting Actress for both Chastain and Spencer, with the latter winning the award. The film also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

Tunde Bright-Davies from PRENO (Portsmouth Race Equality Network Organisation) will give a talk on the origins of Black History Month.