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Evening Standard
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Lennie James

Lennie James: Horace Ové was a pioneer for black filmmakers, a great director unfairly forgotten

Sir Horace Ové was a giant. Not just as a feature film director but also a documentarian and a photographer. Whenever I’m asked about my influences, Horace is at the top of my list and it's great that the BFI is currently putting on a season of his extraordinary work, and that Pressure has been restored and is back out in cinemas.

I first met him when he was casting The Orchid House, a four-parter he was doing for Channel 4 in 1990. He came to see me at the National Theatre and from the moment we sat down there was a connection – and not just because he was Trinidadian – he moved to Britain in 1960 – as are my family, but more because of the man he was, an infectious personality, a generous soul who became an integral part of my life.

As a young actor, I was aware of those amazing black performers who had gone before me and how I was benefiting from them having blazed a trail. To my shame, before we met, I didn’t really know of Horace. But I did my homework and realised very quickly that I was in the company of a great.

Sir Horace Ové (BFI National Archive)

Horace’s film Pressure was huge in our community when it came out. It was pretty much the first time we saw ourselves on the big screen. Before then, if people who looked like us were projected in 35mm the chances were they had American accents, and more often than not they were Sidney Poitier.

Pressure was the first British feature film by a black director. The first time the shots were called by someone who looked like us. The film is about the experience of young first-generation West Indian boy in London. It’s about his journey of understanding himself as a black Brit. It is an immigrant story, it is a family story, it is a celebration and a critique, it is a universal story told by being really specific. It spoke too our country then and in many ways it speaks to our country now.

It’s really important to say just how incredible it was that Horace got to make Pressure in the way he did and to tell the story the way he wanted to tell it. As the first black British feature director there was no one ahead of him to show him the way. When Horace went through that door, he was on his own. And because he went through that door, because he broke barriers on film and TV, at the BBC and Channel 4, it meant the generations to come would never be alone like he was. They would always have Horace.

Playing Away, Horace Ové's film from 1985

Horace is known as the ‘godfather of black filmmaking’ but I’m not sure that truly describes who he was to film-making in this country. I’m not sure it fully quantifies how much was pitted against him. What a mammoth undertaking it was to push the doors open that he pushed open. And to do it all with grace, charm, determination and a sense of humour – but also Horace didn’t take any shit. To do all that to and remain true to himself. To get knocked back and knocked down, but to get back up and do it again. Few of us could do what Horace did.

Speaking to friends recently, we imagined what he could have done given free rein, given the opportunity of the mainstream filmmakers of his generation. With the vision and calibre he had, we tried to imagine the stories he would have told. But his was the journey of the pioneer. It was his role to lay down the paths, open the doors, smash through the ceilings.

Much has changed for black British filmmakers and a great deal of that is down to Horace. But much hasn’t changed and he would’ve been the first to say so. Progress on someone else’s terms and timing is always going to be frustrating and stifling. Give or take a few people, if you’re making a film that is not obviously about the black experience the industry isn’t going to be looking for a black director. That was true for Horace and it is true now.

Horace always championed the generations that came after him. I don’t think there has been a black filmmaker who has got anything made in the last 40 years who wasn’t influenced by or advised by Horace. Like me, when I got my first film made by the BBC, Storm Damage in 1998. They all sat at his feet and asked what I asked, “What do I need to know?” And he was always generous with his time and knowledge. That is why all black filmmaking in this country is six degrees or less from Horace Ové.

Lennie James

He was my mentor and I could not have wished for better. He was always available, always supportive. He never held back with praise or criticism. He showed me care, guidance and love. He encouraged me to risk and to not self edit and for that I’ll be eternally grateful.

Sir Horace Ové is a great of 20th century British filmmaking. That he is not a household name is due to do with circumstance not talent. His output stands on its own. When they tell the story of British filmmaking in the 20th century, there is no question that Horace’s name will be there.

As much as I miss the fact that there will be no more new work from Horace, I miss him more. If I wished he was better known it is of course for the appreciation of his work, but just as much it is so that people could get some sense of this beautiful, unique, special Caribbean soul and understand just how huge he was and why he was so revered and loved.

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