He directed the first Jamaican feature film, The Harder They Come (1972), co-written by Trevor D. Rhone and starring Jimmy Cliff.
[1] Henzell, whose ancestors included Huguenot glassblowers and an old English family who had made their fortune growing sugar cane on Antigua,[2] was born in Annotto Bay, Saint Mary Parish, Jamaica,[3] and grew up on the Caymanas sugar-cane estate near Kingston.
A rough cut of No Place Like Home, which features music from Bob Marley, Toots and the Maytals, The Three Degrees, and Marcia Griffiths, was screened for the public at the 31st annual Toronto International Film Festival in September 2006[2] at the Cumberland Theatre; it was sold out.
Film leads Carl Bradshaw (The Harder They Come, Smile Orange, Countryman) and Susan O'Meara attended and answered audience questions with Henzell after the screening.
[8] The documentary Perry Henzell: A Filmmaker’s Odyssey, directed by David Garonzik and Arthur Gorson, traces the journey to bring No Place Like Home to the big screen.