July 2009


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Reel Life: Courage to make a dream of his own

Do you have a pet project?

Gayelle was a pet project decades in the making and I have to count my blessings that I have had a chance in my lifetime to be able to confront the dream in reality. It is still a pet project yet to be fully realised.

My other pet project has been to make a film of Harold Sonny Ladoo’s No Pain Like This Body. I’ve been working on that for 35 years, ever since I read the book in 1974. Tony Hall, Errol Sitahal and I have a great screenplay but that is as far as we have got. Meanwhile I have been working on a documentary on Ladoo and have filmed about half of it. Work on that stopped with the coming of Gayelle The Channel.

For the past 30 years your productions have helped us to see ourselves, to better understand who we are as a people. With the challenges Banyan and then Gayelle have faced over the years, what do you think is the future of film in T&T and of local programming?

The conditions for Caribbean motion picture production are still difficult, but that is the nature of the business. Making films is never easy, anywhere. But as Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando says, ‘you can’t stop artists dreaming’, even though for nearly half a century of television in the Caribbean we have had to dream other people’s dreams.

Nevertheless there are hopeful signs: The Trinidad & Tobago Film Company is a huge step forward despite the fact that the Government has slashed its already inadequate budget [by] 50% this year; there are film courses at UWI and students are coming out of them with some promise. There are many young people out there now who fancy themselves as filmmakers. The technology is doing for film what it did for audio recording twenty years ago, putting it within the reach of everyone. When Gayelle started five years ago people came to us with ideas, now they come with DVDs.

Do you think that subsidizing the industry would help the progression of film or video productions and raise the standard and does this come hand-inhand with censorship and regulations that may deter creativity?

Subsidies for film production are absolutely essential if the state is serious about developing the industry. Our market is so small [that] massive investment over a long period is needed to kick-start the industry and establish momentum. This includes investment in developing marketing and distribution channels and infrastructure. The industry will not develop if we don’t increase the size of our market and that takes real investment. It is a matter of faith in the real resource we have in the region, the creative drive of our people. This is what has filled the world with Caribbean carnivals; it could be a world full of Caribbean media tomorrow. But the record is more than dismal when it comes to our governments having faith in the worth of our people.

Where do you see Gayelle The Channel in five years?

Gayelle The Channel in five more years will have to still be at the centre of Caribbean media origination one way or the other. It has already radically changed our expectations of our media. Compare the media environment when we began to that of today: the explosion of channels, television personalities, series, shows and people employed in the industry. Yet we are still the only free to air station in the region with close to 100% Caribbean content, 24 hours a day.

In the next few years you can expect a deepening and sharpening of focus as economic realities are driven home, but the shape of the industry in five years will be unrecognisable compared to today. The glory days of broadcast television are way past and the new media is poised to turn established forms on their heads. I expect Gayelle to be in the midst of that. At the very least we will have been the main inspiration and model.

You’ve always seemed like such an even-tempered, unassuming guy, are you excited about being honoured by UWI, by being on stage, in front of the camera for a while?

I have always been a backstage person. I guess I have appeared unassuming because I know I am no genius and it has taken 300 productions and many years of work and self-analysis of my work to find my particular talent and become secure in that.

I am not a flashy film-maker. If you see my hand while watching a film of mine then I have failed in some respect. The people in my films are the subject of the films not me. You know, I see my films like I see my father’s buildings. If you walk into a Colin Laird building, its elegance and his exquisite sense of scale will make you feel the dignity and infinite possibility of being human. I like to feel you get the same feeling when you watch my best work: the joy and pain, the intelligence and enduring courage that it takes to live our lives together in this world.

I am not alone in believing that in this society the fate of the truly innovative and committed artist is vagrancy of one sort or another, literally and/or figuratively. Our history makes us so brutal with those who don’t accept their station. I have seen too many of our heroes talking to themselves in the street to not take it as a caution and know that those who have escaped that fate have done so because someone SAW them, recognised them, loved them, usually a nurturing friend or family member and they were wise enough to accept that love as more important than their dreams.

Recognition and appreciation too often happens here after death. So that The UWI has seen it fit to give me this honour is wonderful. I am deeply appreciative, even while I feel the accusing press of the legions of those still unrecognised and restless warriors who precede me and with whom I still walk.

“I have always been inspired by the giants of our Caribbean civilisation, James, Walcott, Naipaul, McBurnie, Chang, those who I was privileged to come to know as people as a young person growing up.” “I grew up in a house that was often filled with such presences inspired by the dream of Federation and I saw a whole generation crash and burn with its demise.” “I guess all youngsters want to make movies but I first seriously expressed the aim of becoming a filmmaker at 19.” “I guess I have appeared unassuming because I know I am no genius.” “I see my films like I see my father’s buildings. If you walk into a Colin Laird building, its elegance and his exquisite sense of scale will make you feel the dignity and infinite possibility of being human.” “I knew that I had a strong visual sense and a strong sense of mission in terms of expressing the Caribbean reality.”