Black Joy

Ben, an innocent immigrant from a remote village in Guyana, arrives in Brixton and falls prey to an assortment of streetwise characters in Anthony Simmons' Palme d’Or nominated comic drama.

Ben (Trevor Thomas), an innocent immigrant from a remote village in Guyana, arrives into Brixton with a full wallet and a packed suitcase. When he bumps into Devon, a young streetwise boy with an eye on his money, he is taken for a fool – but is gradually drawn in to the boy’s charismatic family circle, which includes Floella Benjamin in one of her earliest roles. Nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1977, and produced shortly after Horace Ové’s landmark film Pressure, Black Joy is both a culture-clash comedy and an unflinching look at the social and financial issues facing black Britons.

Director Anthony Simmons came from a legal background – formerly a barrister, his debut work, the short documentary Sunday by the Sea (1953) won the Grand Prix at Venice Film Festival.