Hubert Oscar Nazareth "Naz"Nazareth (born 1944) is a British filmmaker, writer, journalist and barrister based inLondon, England. He was co-founder of the film production company Penumbra.[1][2]
Born inBombay,British India, ofGoan descent,[3] Hubert Oscar Nazareth at the age of 21 in 1965 went to Britain, where he worked at various jobs, including computer programmer.[4] He went on to study philosophy and politics at theUniversity of Kent,[1] and qualified as a barrister.[4] Nazareth experienced racist treatment in searching for work in the UK, and after witnessing the way police harassed hisAfro-Caribbean friends while they left him alone he joined theBritish Black Panther movement.[5]
As well as writing and performing poetry in London, Nazareth worked as a journalist contributing to the radical political magazineThe Leveller and toTime Out, where he was later a member of the group that set up the alternative listings magazineCity Limits in 1981.[1]
After interviewing Trinidadian directorHorace Ové forThe Leveller, Nazareth co-wrote with him the script of the television filmThe Garland (1981),[6][7] which led to the creation of an independent production company named Penumbra.[1] Alongside Ové and Nazareth, other members of Penumbra Productions includedMichael Abbensetts,Lindsay Barrett,Margaret Busby,Farrukh Dhondy, andMustapha Matura.[8] In 1983, Penumbra Productions made a 60-minute film,Talking History (directed by Nazareth), featuringC. L. R. James in dialogue withE. P. Thompson,[9][10] and Penumbra also filmed a series of six of James's lectures, shown onChannel 4 television, the topics being:Shakespeare; cricket; American society;Solidarity in Poland; the Caribbean; and Africa.[11]
Nazareth was producer of the magazine showSunday East for Channel 4 in the 1980s. He and directorFaris Kermani formed the company Azad Productions (1984–1989) with a focus on programmes for people from the Indian subcontinent, such as in 1986 the television documentariesA Fearful Silence in 1986 (about domestic violence in the Asian community), andA Corner of a Foreign Field (directed byUdayan Prasad) on the lives of Pakistanis in the UK. Among the films Nazareth has produced areSuffer the Children (1988, onapartheid South Africa),Doctors and Torture (1990,[12] about medical involvement in torture in Latin America),China Rocks: The Long March of Cui Jian (1991);Bombay and Jazz (1992),[13][14] andStories My Country Told Me,[15] on culture and nationalism.[1]
Also a poet,[16] Nazareth published a poetry collection, entitledLobo, in 1984.[17][18] In addition to writing forThe Leveller, as a journalist he has written for such publications as theNew Statesman,[19]New African[20] andMarxism Today.[21] He is a contributor toReflected in Water: Writings on Goa (Penguin India, 2006), edited byJerry Pinto.[4]
^Nazareth, H. O. (Winter–Spring 1983)."Nine poems".Journal of South Asian Literature. 18 – Goan Literature: A Modern Reader (1).JSTORi40039183. Retrieved21 December 2020.
