Neigeme Glasgow-Maeda has built an impressive portfolio of work, along the way receiving many international accolades. However, after decades of working in all areas of film production, in addition to serving as a mentor, entrepreneur, academic and even a DJ, he felt there was still work to be done.
It was anger a trip to Senegal that pushed him to complete his most recent work, The Lore: Dark Tales from the Caribbean, which tells the story of folklore characters existing in modern Trinidad and Tobago.
“I was angry and could not sleep, so I put pen to paper. A line became a paragraph, that became a story that became an episode,” Glasgow-Maeda recalls.
He did not set out to write a book, but after securing an editor for the series, he wondered if he could get it published. And with his sights set on taking his first book to market, He told himself that he had to make it the best that it could be.
At the recent launch, hosted at the Alma Jordan Library, he explained that he was invited to be a mentor at a television festival in Senegal, and when he met the young producers and directors, passionate about telling their native stories, he was frustrated that similar advocacy wasn’t being done back home.
While bringing The Lore to life, Glasgow-Maeda continued to wear his many other hats. He oversaw his film production company in Luxembourg, NGM Productions. He travelled to film festivals where he spoke and mentored. In 2025, he enrolled at UWI St Augustine, and is now working on his PhD in Cultural Studies.
“I have always wanted to be a West Indian scholar. UWI is not only in the top 15 percent of universities globally for postgraduate studies, but they also offer exactly what I wanted to pursue,” he says when asked about his reason for choosing to study at The UWI, despite previously studying, teaching and residing abroad.
He hopes that his doctorate research will help contribute to the growth of an economically viable film industry in the Caribbean.
His love for the arts started from a young age. He fondly recalls attending plays at Central Bank on his own, and experiencing his sisters, as children, playing mas with Peter Minshall. This appreciation is what drives him to preserve creativity and culture. He hopes that through film and books, the characters and stories that we grew up with will never be forgotten.
“None of this belongs to us, we are custodians of it,” he says. “I want the stories and characters to go everywhere because they came from everywhere else.”
