Pan-African legend Ulric Cross comes alive in ‘Hero’

After a successful UK tour, the film about an extraordinary Pan-African hero is returning to South Africa to feature at the Joburg Film Festival this month.

When Hero premiered at the Durban International Film Festival in July it received high praise. And it has just come off a massively successful tour where it was screened in cinemas as part of an event-based national release in major cities across the UK from Edinburgh to Brighton.

During the tour, the film garnered rave reviews from publications such as The Financial Times and the London Evening Standard, which wrote: “If you are interested in the birth and evolution of Pan-Africanism, you’ll be gripped.”

Nickolai Salcedo as Ulric Cross in ‘Hero’.

Other critics have written that Hero was “an electrifying, dramatic motion picture, filled with twists and turns that will thrill audiences across the globe”.

And some commended the filmmaker, Frances-Anne Solomon, saying she “deserves lavish praise for showcasing a historical legend, and for helping to change the negative stereotypical portrayal of people of African descent on the screen”.

Hero poignantly crafts a story inspired by the remarkable life and times of Trinidadian war hero, judge and diplomat Ulric Cross. He was recognised as the most decorated West Indian pilot of WW II and had a remarkable influence in the fight for liberation across Africa.

The film spans the dynamic and transformative times in which he lived. It is the untold story of those Caribbean men and women who helped liberate Africa from colonialism.

Fraser James as George Padmore in ‘Hero’.

“The film resonates with audiences around the world. From his career in the Royal Air Force to his time as a lawyer and judge working behind the scenes in the independence movements of Ghana, Cameroon and Tanzania, Ulric’s life blazed a trail that inspires us all,” the director said.

Hero won the Best Diaspora Narrative Film at the prestigious 15th Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) ceremony in Lagos, Nigeria.

“As a curator, as someone who has been working with Pan-African cinema for a number of years – on the African continent, in the Caribbean, England and in North America – Hero is really important because it brings the factual aspects of this important story and time together with a dramatic presentation,” says June Givanni, one of the AMAA international jury.

Nickolai Salcedo as Ulric Cross and Eric Kofi Abrefa as Kofi Mensah in ‘Hero’.

“It has both a dramatic impact and an impact that carries a significant amount of information for audiences. To be honest, I can’t think of many films that do this. For me as a curator, it’s a gold mine and I congratulate Frances-Anne and everyone who was involved in it.”

The screenings will be in six different venues in Johannesburg.

“Ultimately, the story is about us. About who we are as African people, and as citizens of the world,” said Solomon.

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