Pressure

Horace Ové’s fiction-film debut marks a watershed in the history of British cinema: the nation’s first feature to be written and directed by a Black filmmaker and the first to focus on the perspective of Black characters. This vivid, absorbing portrait of the second-generation immigrant experience follows teenage Tony (Norville), the London-born son of Trinidadian parents, as he struggles to find his place in the world, marginalized by white racism but also alienated by the Black Power militarism espoused by his older brother. Suffused with the political outrage and explosive rebellion of 70s London, Pressure is a marvel of lived-in independent filmmaking that stunningly captures Black working-class solidarity, examining what it means to be an outsider in one’s own society.

Restored by the BFI National Archive and The Film Foundation. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.