Spike Lee honoured by Bafta for 'kicking down doors' for black film-makers

Spike Lee, the American director whose films spearheaded "new black wave cinema" in the 1980s, was honoured yesterday with a Bafta special achievement award.

Lee, 44, collected his silver award from the British Academy's president, Richard Attenborough, at an evening ceremony dedicated to him in central London.

He is the first black director to receive such an award in the academy's 55-year history. However, Bafta said it had chosen Lee because he was an important director who had had "a huge influence on modern film-making", irrespective of his colour.

The New-York based film-maker, who brought racial politics to cinema in provocative films such as Do The Right Thing (1989), and Malcolm X (1992), said he was delighted to receive the award.

But, in an interview with The Independent, he expressed relief that he was no longer one of the only black directors in American cinema.

"When I was starting out, we were really rubbing pennies together to make things work. Do the Right Thing helped to bring about new black wave cinema. I am glad there are a lot more black directors out there now," he said.

Lee is credited with widening opportunities for African Americans in the film world. He helped launch the career of the Oscar-winning actress, Halle Berry, who featured in his film Jungle Fever in 1991, and earned the actor Denzel Washington an Oscar nomination for his lead role in Lee's biopic, Malcolm X.

Amma Asante, a member of the Bafta council, said it was partly because of Lee's role in developing black talent that he was selected for the award. "If you take Halle Berry, her first big break boils down to Spike Lee, if you take Samuel L Jackson, if you take Denzel Washington or Laurence Fishburne, they all somehow go back to Spike Lee," she said.

However, Lee said yesterday that despite the proliferation of black actors in the industry, he was not convinced there was any greater diversity. "There are more black stars in cinema but I don't know if there is very much diversity of roles," the director said.

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He said he had never limited himself to dealing only with racial themes and his latest film, The 25th Hour, starring Edward Norton as a drug dealer to the rich and famous, exemplified that. "Not everything I do pertains to race. I pick stories I would like to tell," he said.

Lee launched himself with She's Gotta Have It in 1986, a $175,000 budget film which his grandmother, Zimmie Shelton, helped to fund.

Nick James, editor of Sight and Sound film magazine, said Lee had been "the primary African American director to have kicked down the doors."