Director Yao Ramesar’s latest film, Fortune for All, brings together some of T&T’s top talents (many of them from UWI) both in front and behind the camera
Dr Yao Ramesar, Coordinator of The UWI Film Degree Programme, is a name synonymous with the local and regional film industry. Later this year, the accomplished director returns with a stellar cast and crew largely drawn from the talent pool of the St Augustine-based film studies programme.
Fortune for All as a film idea came to the director in the midst of a trip back to T&T between directing two feature films, one in South Africa and another in India. The story came to him in the middle of the funeral that brought him back home in 2014/2015. The movie follows the Fortune family, and in particular three Caribbean siblings who find themselves simultaneously reunited by the death of their eldest brother and marooned on the family's coastal estate for a period of isolation. They are in the midst of something we are now familiar with – a deadly virus in their country.
“The film takes place while a virus is sweeping a Caribbean island, and it focuses on the impact on a middle class family who have an estate on the coast,” Dr Ramesar explains. “The eldest brother dies first, which is likened to the eulogy I experienced at that funeral.”
He adds, “Michael Cherrie, who I believe is T&T’s foremost actor, and has been in all but one of my features, appears alongside the talented Nickolai Salcedo, Samara Lallo, and Kyle Daniel Hernandez. They are all graduates of the DCFA (Department of Creative and Festival Arts). Samara is also one of the most formidable actors we have produced in T&T.”
The film also features contributions from Tayo Ojoade (editing), and Shea Best (direction of photography), who are UWI Film Programme alumni, and Simon Lee (a former lecturer in The UWI Film Programme). Natalia Gomez, vocal instructor at DCFA, performs the film’s opera soundtrack.
Michael Cherrie, also a graduate of The UWI Film Programme, will soon be seen alongside Oscar-winning actor Regina King and directed by Academy Award winner John Ridley of 12 Years a Slave, in the motion picture Shirley.
In a case of art imitating life, production of Fortune for All was shut down in 2020 due to the real-world pandemic. But the film will finally be seen in 2023.
Yao has always wanted to make films.
“I lived within walking distance of six cinemas. Growing up, I was already making all these movies – but in my head. I was playing out and recording these stories. I always knew I wanted to tell stories through film, to write my own, and not be a cog in the wheel. And I finally had a chance to do that when I first picked up a camera in my teen years and then later on when I studied film at Howard University.”
He further immersed himself in an MFA in Film Directing, and even though he was scouted on several occasions to work on other films and the most financially successful TV series in history – he stayed to the course of the auteur-director – insisting on telling the stories that were important to him. Dr Ramesar was also named the Caribbean's first Laureate in Arts and Letters in 2006 by the Anthony N Sabga Awards for Excellence.
Much has changed in the many years since the UWI Film Programme was started. And Dr Ramesar is proud of the shift that The UWI has been able to usher into the local industry.
“Industry is a mechanical thing in people’s minds, but the film culture is more important in context of the development of a viable film industry. Which is – it’s not hoping for a future industry – we have an industry and culture. It’s being partly fueled by The UWI Film Programme, yes. We need to tell more stories of our own, but what may those stories be? We need to move on to the next phase – past the ‘training wheels’ talk of incubation.”
He adds, “We make films; therefore, we are. To quote the tombstone of CLR James, ‘It’s not where you’re coming from, it’s where you’re going and at what rate’.”
According to Dr Ramesar, there are a number of indigenous features starting to see the light in major distribution platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other popular platforms and festivals. He would also like to be able to track community made films and platforms such as the successful Santana series (created by Roger Alexis, a former UWI Film Programme student) and many others coming up through the democratisation of media through cheaper and easier access to technology.
“Over the past 15 years we have been pursuing this mythical ‘El Dorado’ that you would call a film industry – but we are already in the middle of that city. It’s around us.”
