KINGSTON, Jamaica – It’s rare when four members of a family receive national honors in Jamaica. The Henzells achieved that unique feat with the recent announcement that Justine Henzell will be invested with the Order of Distinction (OD) in October.
Like her father Perry (director/writer of The Harder They Come) and brother Jason (proprietor of Jake’s in Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth parish), Henzell has been awarded her country’s sixth-highest honor.
Her mother Sally received a Badge of Honour for Meritorious Service for contribution to the arts in 2011.
Justine Henzell will receive her award on National Heroes Day at King’s House.
Justine Henzell
“Being so honored by your country feels both humbling and uplifting simultaneously. It also feels like a call for further action to be worthy,” she said.
Since her father’s death in 2006, Justine Henzell has overseen his legacy, which is built around The Harder They Come, the classic 1972 movie starring Jimmy Cliff. She was involved in its successful theater adaptation which played in the United Kingdom and United States, and marshaled its 50th anniversary celebrations in 2022.
The Harder They Come 50th Anniversary
“Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of THTC in 2022 was exciting because we used the opportunity to celebrate Perry’s achievement (as director) of the first Jamaican feature film but also to showcase all the amazing Jamaican artists and poets working today who produced original work inspired by the film. One great piece of art can inspire more great pieces of art 50 years later and that is the mark of a legacy that endures,” Henzell noted.
In 2001, along with author Colin Channer and poet Kwame Dawes, she started the Calabash Literary Festival at Jake’s, a scenic property on Jamaica’s south coast. It has attracted the elite of literati including St. Lucian Nobel Prize-winning poet Sir Derek Walcott, British author Salman Rushdie, Jamaican author Marlon James, Jamaica-born, British-based dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson and Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka.
Other entertainment/arts figures acknowledged by the Jamaican government this year are singer Marcia Griffiths, who will receive the Order of Jamaica, the country’s fourth-highest honor, ska pioneer Owen Gray and reggae singer Tarrus Riley.
