RUBIKA SHAH’S feature-length directorial debut expertly documents the emergence of Rock Against Racism (RAR) that emerged in 1976, just as punk was exploding across Britain.

Using intriguing archive material, eschewing editorialisation and allowing the seven-year story of RAR to be told in the words of those involved, White Riot sidesteps the cliches and pitfalls easily fallen into when portraying punk, or indeed British life, in the mid to late-1970s.

The film is a reminder that RAR was as much a cultural as a political movement and, that while it was partly a response to the noisy mid-70s presence of the National Front (NF), the initial spur for its creation was a series of dodgy statements in support of fascism made by the dinosaurs of rock — among them Eric Clapton — against whom punk was kicking.

Shah keeps a firm focus to the narrative and steers away from the usual cast of punk-era talking heads.

As a result, the film is largely without the exaggeration that comes with collective, mythologised memory, although one claim that RAR helped “to avoid the possibility of a National Front administration” is stretching things, to say the least. Despite contesting 303 seats in the 1979 general election, the NF polled just 0.6 per cent of votes.

With an absence of hyperbole, what emerges is a thoughtful portrait of the do-it-yourself ethos of the era, with the refreshingly decentralised RAR delegating the organisation of campaigns and gigs to ordinary, inexperienced punters in their home towns.

The film culminates with fascinating footage of the huge 1978 outdoor RAR concert in north London, about which the movement’s admirable founder Red Saunders says: “In this society we are made to feel powerless and useless and that the great and the good should do our thinking for us.”

“One of the wonderful things we did in RAR was to say: ‘No. Just ordinary people, we can do things. We can change the world’.”

Released in cinemas on September 18.