The Black Cop, a short film commissioned by Guardian Documentaries and supported by the BFI Doc Society Fund (awarding National Lottery funding), has won a BAFTA Film Award.
Directed and produced by Cherish Oteka, and produced by Emma Cooper, The Black Cop triumphed at the 75th British Academy Film Awards, winning the British Short Film category at a ceremony held in the Royal Albert Hall, London (Sunday 13 March).
The Black Cop is the first Guardian Documentary to win a BAFTA Film Award. It follows recent Guardian Documentaries success with Colette, which won an Oscar last year for best documentary short, and an Oscar nomination in 2019 for Black Sheep. The Black Cop’s executive producers for the Guardian are Ekaterina Ochagavia and Jess Gormley, and Lisa Marie Russo for the BFI Doc Society Fund. The commissioning editor is Lindsay Poulton, the Guardian’s head of documentaries.
The Black Cop, available to watch on the Guardian website now, is an intimate portrait of Gamal ‘G’ Turawa, an ex-Metropolitan police officer, who explores his memories of racially profiling and harassing Black people and homophobia in his early career. Now an openly gay man, Turawa’s story is a multi-layered one and sits in the centre of three pivotal moments in recent British history, from the Black communities’ resistance of oppressive policing, to the push for LGBTQIA equality and the aftermath of the west African ‘farming’ phenomenon, where white families took care of Black children outside the remit of local authorities.
Cherish Oteka, director and producer of The Black Cop, says:
“Winning a BAFTA Film Award means the world to me and is a huge collective win for the many underrepresented communities that The Black Cop speaks to as well as the entire team that brought this film to life. It’s so heart-warming that audiences have connected with The Black Cop in such a meaningful way and winning best short film is more than I could ever have hoped for. A massive thank you to the teams at The Guardian and the BFI Doc Society Fund for believing in the idea and supporting me throughout the journey.”
Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief, Guardian News & Media says:
“This award from BAFTA is a huge achievement, and a tribute to the talented filmmakers who have produced such a powerful and stirring documentary. I’m delighted that the Guardian’s global platform played a part in helping Gamal’s story reach audiences. The Black Cop is the Guardian’s first BAFTA Film Award and joins several other award-winning short films in our acclaimed Guardian Documentaries strand. Congratulations to all involved.”
Lindsay Poulton, head of documentaries, Guardian News & Media, says:
“I’m thrilled that The Black Cop has received this recognition from BAFTA and am proud that Guardian Documentaries was able to support Cherish and the filmmakers to tell this important story of identity and acceptance. The Guardian has been at the forefront of commissioning ambitious short form documentaries for audiences around the world, and The Black Cop is a great reflection of our wide-ranging documentary strand, helping to bring different perspectives and new ways of thinking to compelling and vital journalism.”
Lisa Marie Russo. executive producer for the BFI Doc Society Fund, says:
“We are over the moon that The Black Cop has won the BAFTA Short Film Award, in a category with stiff competition from fiction and doc titles. It is a testament to the power of the genre, and the filmmaking talent of director Cherish Oteka and producer Emma Cooper, who tell an urgent and engaging story, which speaks to our time. And many thanks to Gamal Turawa for speaking truth to power.”
Guardian Documentaries have received critical acclaim around the world, playing at major film festivals and winning numerous awards, including an Oscar, a BAFTA Film Award and a Grierson, plus accolades at Cannes, Sheffield Doc/Fest and others.
The Black Cop has screened at Raindance, British Shorts Film Festival, Aesthetic Short Film Festival, Out On Film, Atlanta’s International LGBTQ Film Festival, The Pan African Film & Arts Festival, American Black Film Festival, and Leeds International Film Festival.
A full list of the 2022 BAFTA Film Award winners can be found here.
Notes to editors
About Guardian News & Media
Guardian News & Media (GNM) publishes theguardian.com, one of the world’s leading English-language news websites. Traffic from outside of the UK now represents around two-thirds of the Guardian’s total digital audience. In the UK, GNM publishes the Guardian newspaper six days a week, first published in 1821, and the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, The Observer.
BFI Doc Society Fund
The BFI Doc Society Fund was launched in 2018, as Doc Society became the BFI’s delegate partner for independent UK documentary filmmaking. To date, it has distributed over £4.2 million to UK independent documentary films, thanks to National Lottery funding.The Fund supports creative and hybrid feature documentaries with bold cultural and social ambitions, and short films by diverse, emerging voices from all over the UK.
The fund has supported 44 independent documentary features since 2018, including Nothing Compares, Maya, African Apocalypse, Locked In, Bank Job, Men Who Sing, PolyStyrene: I Am A Cliché. The films have screened internationally and secured a number of award nominations, winning at The Grierson Awards, BIFAs, BAFTA and RTS. Key partners include BBC Film, Doc Society’s Climate Story Fund, Creative Scotland, Ffilm Cymru, Field of Vision and Northern Ireland Screen.
Forty-one short films, including Grierson and Emmy award winners, have been funded through the BFI Doc Society Made of Truth fund, in partnership with BFI NETWORK. They have screened at international festivals including Sundance, London, IDFA, Sheffield, TIFF amongst others and been distributed and exhibited by Guardian Docs, Nat Geo, POV and the V&A.
The BFI Doc Society Fund also facilitates a dedicated support programme aimed at building connections with documentary filmmakers across all corners of the UK and provides professional development opportunities for grantee filmmakers.
The BFI is a cultural charity, a National Lottery distributor, and the UK’s lead organisation for film and the moving image. Our mission is:
To support creativity and actively seek out the next generation of UK storytellers.
To grow and care for the BFI National Archive, the world’s largest film and television archive.
To offer the widest range of the UK and international moving image culture through our programmes and festivals - delivered online and in-venue.
To use our knowledge to educate and deepen public appreciation and understanding.
To work with Government and industry to ensure the continued growth of the UK’s screen industries.
Founded in 1933, the BFI is a registered charity governed by the Royal Charter. The BFI Board of Governors is chaired by Tim Richards. For more information, contact khadija@docsociety.org, Twitter @TheDocSociety, www.facebook.com/TheDocSociety, and Instagram: @thedocsociety
