Movie Magic: UWI filmmakers make the final cut

Jonathan Ali gets up close and personal with UWI filmmakers

The magic of the movies came to UWI as the University hosted two days and nights of film screenings as part of the outreach programme of the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival 2009. What’s more, the programme included a wide selection of engaging films made by students and members of the faculty.

The Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival ran from September 16 to 29 at venues around the country, with the UWI standing-roomonly screenings taking place on Thursday 24 (Republic Day) and Friday 25, at the Institute of Critical Thinking during the day and on evenings at the Film Programme’s brand new headquarters at Carmody Road, St. Augustine. The evening screenings, which took place outdoors, also served as a launch event for the Film Programme’s new location as well as a celebration of the Programme’s first graduating class.

Conceived as a form to showcase of the best local, Caribbean, and Caribbean Diaspora films, the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival began in 2006 as a weeklong series of film screenings at MovieTowne in Port of Spain. Since then, it has grown tremendously, with this year’s Festival comprising a fortnight of screenings of over 60 feature-length and short narrative, documentary, and experimental films. In addition to the film screenings, were also workshops, panel discussions, social events and more.

The UWI outreach is a significant event, and not only because it gives persons from East Trinidad and the University easier access to excellent local and foreign films they may not otherwise be able to see; but the screenings are also important for the University’s nascent Film Programme, which while only in its fourth year, is already making its presence felt beyond campus.

“The two full days and nights of screenings at UWI reflects the close relationship between the Film Programme and the TTFF,” notes Bruce Paddington, the new Programme Coordinator of the BA in Film, and founder of the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival. “This relationship was really given a boost when films made by students of the Film Programme won two out of the three people’s choice awards at last year’s Festival.”

The films Paddington refers to are The Siege, directed by Junior Andrew-Lett, which won the award for best documentary, and Directions, by Renee Pollonais, which was the best short film. The Siege is a sobering reflection on the 1990 coup attempt, while Pollonais’ film is a funny look at the Trinidadian predilection for giving bad directions.

This year the student films — which are by students from all three years of the Programme— reflect a variety of themes and concerns. Thomas Jemmerson’s Queen of the Brands, for example, is a stylish piece of anti-consumerist agitprop, featuring an overly materialistic young woman who is made to learn a lesson in the perils of being too bling-conscious. In addition to showing at UWI, this film also has the honour of screening at MovieTowne on the opening night of the Festival.

Among the other student films is the humorous folktale Suck Meh Soucouyant, Suck Meh, by Oyetayo Ojoade, about an old Mayaro village ram, Lionel, who coaxes a powerful soucouyant to fly to England and steal a gold spoon from Queen Victoria’s cutlery. When Lionel tries to steal the spoon from the soucouyant—in a ploy that includes a final demonstration of his virility—things go disastrously wrong. Similar in subject is Roger Alexis’ Contemporary Sorcerer, a raucous story about a formidable obeah man.

There are also a few student documentaries. Jimmel Daniel’s The Power of the Vagina explores issues of women’s sexuality and sexual politics in our society. The film was a favourite at home and abroad, receiving a standing ovation and selected as a finalist for Best Documentary at the Portobello Road Film Festival in London.

	Coolie Pink and Green		Power of the Vagina

Solange Plaza’s Racing Definitions looks at contemporary attitudes towards race. Finally there is a film from the graduating class, Sans Souci, a haunting drama about a group of friends in conflict, written and directed by the Film programme’s honors graduate, Francesca Hawkins.

However, the screenings aren’t just about student films. “The outreach programme is also an opportunity to see the work being made by staff,” says Paddington. These films include the feature-length Sistagod II: Her Second Coming, by professional filmmaker and lecturer in the Film Programme, Robert Yao Ramesar, which was screened on Thursday evening at Carmody Road. The second film in a trilogy, the visually stunning, symbol-laden Sistagod II continues the story of a black female messiah’s struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. The film’s stunning imagery and prolific metaphors generated much discussion at the launch.

Also being screened is Professor Patricia Mohammed’s sumptuously shot Coolie Pink and Green, about a young Indo-Trinidadian’s attempts to reconcile her life as a modern woman while holding on to the traditions of the past. The film won People’s Choice at the Film Festival.

There will also be a couple of documentary profiles: Dr. Bhoe Tewarie’s VS Naipaul: Tribute to a Native Son, which was shot back in 2007 when Naipaul visited Trinidad for the celebrations at UWI in honour of his 75th birthday, as well as a film by co-founder of the film programme, Dr. Jean Antoine-Dunne on Professor Gordon Rohlehr.

In addition to the films by students and staff, selections from the wider Festival will also be shown. One such film is Bury Your Mother, an unsettling and provocative experimental film by writer, artist and filmmaker, Jaime Lee Loy, a UWI alumnus. Another is British documentarian Adam Low’s portrait of legendary Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray. The director himself will be in attendance for the screening, following which he will introduce Satyajit Ray’s debut film, the 1955 classic Pather Panchali.

To close the UWI programme, filmmakers belonging to the bfm collective from the UK were at Carmody Road on the Friday evening, to screen and talk about their work. The forum featured Rachel Wang, director of Afro-Saxons, a warmhearted film about black women’s hairstyling in Britain; Ismahil Blagrove, director of Hasta Siempre, a revealing look at life in contemporary Cuba; and Lawrence Coke, maker of the hilarious romantic comedy, Melvin: Portrait of a Player.

“We intend for the Film Programme’s location at Carmody Road to become a place where people from the neighbourhood can come and see good films,” says Paddington, who plans to make screenings there under the stars a regular event. “We hope these screenings will also help forge further links between UWI and the local community.”

Jonathan Ali