UK viewers are finally to get a chance to see the film Hero, based on the life of Trinidadian World War Two veteran Ulric Cross.

The film has been screened in Canada and Trinidad & Tobago and will have its premier in the UK in May. 

It tells the story of his life from a schoolboy in colonial Trinidad to his time as a navigator with the RAF’s Pathfinders flights during WW2. Cross went on to become one of the RAF’s most decorated West Indian airmen.  As Caribbean Intelligence has documented, he was then recruited by fellow Trinidadian George Padmore, one of the architects of Pan-Africanism, to travel to Ghana to help Kwame Nkrumah in his work seeking to unite Africa’s emerging nations. 

During Cross’s 15 years in Africa, he served on Ghana’s Crown Council. He was also Attorney General in Cameroon, a High Court judge in Tanzania and Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Dar Es Salaam. 

He  then returned to Trinidad where he served as a High Court judge and on the Court of Appeal, later becoming Chair of the country’s Law Reform Commission. He was posted to London as Trinidad and Tobago’s High Commissioner to the UK from 1990 to 1993. 

Producer Frances-Anne Solomon says: “The story is about us - about who we are as Caribbean people and as citizens of the world.” 

Filmed across the UK, Trinidad, Ghana, and Canada, Hero features a host of celebrated British actors including Joseph Marcell (of Fresh Prince of Bel Air fame) playing the role of writer CLR James, Fraser James (of Terminator Salvation) playing the role of George Padmore and British- Nigerian actor Jimmy Akingbola (of BBC’s Holby) playing Ghana’s first President, Kwame Nkrumah.

Caribbean Intelligence is proud to be a partner of this project. Following its premier at the BFI, Hero will be taken across the UK in as part of to the 71st Windrush celebrations in June.

View the film trail here:

HERO World Tour Official Trailer from HERO on Vimeo.

Related links

Tickets for HERO

Caribbean Intelligence on the film HERO