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Caribbean Cinema Comes of Age by Joanne Butcher
Fort George, Granada, which figures in 'Forward Ever', the soon-to-be film of record about the Granadian Revolution and subsequent US invasion. photo: courtesy B. & L. Paddington
HAVING LIVED IN MIAMI FOR MANY
years, where I ran indie theaters and film associations, and being of Trinidadian descent, I like to return and re-fuel whenever Northern California gets too foggy. When I do, I naturally check out the film scene.
As it happened, on my recent visit, the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival was about to take off (September 14-19), so I caught the one hour flight over the bright, blue Caribbean, two time zones and a few major film cultures: Cuba, Jamaica and Puerto Rico.
Caribbean Features
Forward Ever: The Killing of a Revolution
Watching the inspirational and heartbreaking “Forward Ever” (2013, Trinidad and Tobago, English, dir. Bruce Paddington), I felt as though I had been waiting for years to see this film. Don't we all want a fully-realized explanation of what actually happened when Reagan invaded Grenada, presumably to distract from problems at home?
While the revolution took place in 1979, the US invasion occurred after the coup in 1983. My father and I visited the island about a year later during the week President Reagan went on television to claim that there were no longer any US troops in Grenada. But we saw that every hotel was completely full of soldiers.
I am still haunted by the words “Free Grenada” and “Radio Free Grenada” that were spray-painted everywhere.
The first hour of “Forward Ever” describes life under the old Prime Minister, Eric Gairy, whose brutality and self-worship were as horrific as they were common in the area.
What was remarkable was that on this tiny Caribbean island, in an environment where abject poverty and brutality often go unremarked, and despite Gairy’s swift suppression of opposition, a force for change did actually develop.
The film was made on a shoestring by just two people: Bruce Paddington, the grandfather of T&T film and founder of the festival (see article) and his son, Luke, who now makes films for Cisco in Silicon Valley (see article).
It tells the story of the coalition of two opposition groups that came together to form the New Jewel Movement headed by Maurice Bishop. The film shows remarkable, never-seen-before footage from contemporary interviews, Grenadian television and Cuban archives as they overthrew the government in an almost bloodless coup, achieved by taking over the radio station.
The story is one of massive support by the entire population. And why not given the fact that suddenly there was free healthcare, free education, work for everyone and prosperity?
Meanwhile, however, the shadow of Reagan hovers, anxious over New Jewel’s involvement with Cuba and other communist countries and—as some will remember—the building of the airport, which the US claimed, was for military purposes.
Sadly, personal greed and jealousy drives one wing of the coalition to put Bishop under house arrest. The Grenadian people, however, lead by high school kids, rebel and march to Bishop’s house and free him.
Also occurring in a Caribbean prison, 'Redemption Song' covers how prisoners transform themselves through music. photo: courtesy Galofré/Pantling
At this climactic point, the film slows way down delivering to us a minutely detailed account of the next few hours as those involved tell their stories and the filmmakers attempt to unravel the knots and threads of the truth.
We meet Bishop’s sister and others who were in the room with Bishop when the tanks arrived. We see lengthy interviews with Calistus (Abdullah) Bernard, the officer in command of the troops at the time, which alone is worth the price of admission. He takes personal responsibility for the violence that ensued.
His interviews show both a desire to tell the truth accurately and the human need for plausible deniability when the darkness gets too great. “So you machine-gunned them?” “Well, they were not machine guns…”
On October 19th, the anniversary one of the largest murders, "Forward Ever " was screened at the scene of the crime in Grenada, Fort George, preceded by a memorial service. In the audience were relatives and friends of those killed, many of whom appeared in the film, while the screen itself was the very wall at where the executions took place exactly 30 years earlier.
A shorter version will be released for US audiences. But Caribbean people or anyone interested in the nature of revolution or movements of poor people will want to see the full two-and-a-half hour version. “Forward Ever” will undoubtedly become the document of record for the Grenadian Revolution.
Redemption Songs
Not surprisingly “Redemption Songs” (2013, Jamaica/Spain, English, dirs. Miquel Galofré, Amanda Sans Pantling) received both the People’s Choice Award and the Jury Prize for Best Documentary.
It’s a truly feel-good project that takes us inside the General Penitentiary in Kingston to witness a music program which has inmates singing their own reggae to us. And the men are their own best advocates.
One demonstrates to us the humiliation of living in his tiny cell and having to clean out his own slop pail every morning. He does the viewer the service of making sure no one thinks the criminal life is glamorous. Others speak and sing of their personal transformation through music and creative collaboration.
Although the star of the film is Pity More, who tells us his gang name was Pitiless, the real heroes are the former Superintendent, whose belief in redemption brought the program to the prison in the first place, and Carla Gullota who funded and founded it.
The film uses interesting cinematic techniques, notably the fish eye lens employed when singers solo in the recording studio, and other elements that make this a particularly stylish documentary. Proceeds from the soundtrack go to the victims’ families.
A great mock-umentary, 'I Am A Director' is also postmodern tour de farce. photo: courtesy J. Colon
I Am A Director
I chose to see "I am a Director" (2012, Puerto Rico/Spain, with English subtitles, dir. Javier Colon) due to my own preferences for self-referential film. And guess what? "I Am A Director" turned out to be the most the meta, how-not-to-make-a-movie mock-umentary I have ever seen.
Watching Colon’s first outing as writer and director film elicited a combination of out-loud laughter and stomach-churning nausea at the antics of first-time director, Carlos, played to perfection, by Carlos Rivera Marchand.
Having spent years around filmmakers, I have met this guy TOO many times! Sometimes "I am a Director is almost too painful to watch!
Colon opens by having Carlos tell the audience that he wants to make a documentary of the making of his first film to show everyone just how darn easy it is. He is so charming and personable, we totally are rooting for him.
But as the movie progresses, we learn more and more about his lack of talent and preparation, and his arrogance and contempt for those who sincerely want to work hard on the project.
His mantra to keep himself buoyed through the hard moments is: “Soy el major.” ("I am the best.") The fact that Marchand doesn’t engender so much hate that we hurl our popcorn at the screen is a true testament to his acting powers.
In one interview, Carlos is asked what makes a good movie. He answers: “You need a good director. You need a camera. You need cables. And you need cable extensions…” He then pauses with his Mona Lisa smile to let the impact of his elevated wisdom fully sink in.
He becomes a creepy stalker of the object of his affections, whom he has hired as the lead while rejecting the woman who loves him and who is, in fact, producing the film. (Sound familiar?)
By the time he demands a budget increase, I was ready to tear my hair out. We can safely assume that real director, Colon, has absolutely nothing in common with the first-time-director-from-hell he so fully brings to the screen.
But anyone who has spent time around filmmakers will recognize every characteristic, every line, every moment in this exquisitely observed and hilarious film. Just remember to bring a vomit bag.
Shot from 'The Stuart Hall Project'. photo: courtesy J. Akomfrah
The Stuart Hall Project
"The Stuart Hall Project" (2013, United Kingdom, English) is by John Akomfrah, one of England’s most accomplished documentary makers. It won a special mention as Best Caribbean Film by an International Director.
His beautiful work is amply on display in this piece, which combines experimental techniques with mainstream documentary to tell the personal life story as well as cultural history of Stuart Hall, a culture critic of West Indian birth.
In "The Stuart Hall Project", Akomfrah makes the medium the message. He uses the concepts from Hall’s criticism to illustrate the changes in understanding of culture that he—and his generation of West Indians arriving in the UK—brought with them, even as they themselves changed the environment.
The film tells the history of the '40s and '50s when Caribbean immigrants first made an impact and developed a self-image influenced by their imported values as well as external events.
One of the strongest moments in the film is when Hall, already a professor and advanced thinker in cultural studies, is challenged by his wife’s new feminist ideas about her role as a wife and mother, and he’s not sure he likes it.
'Walking Drawings' by Everton Wright is an environmental meditation from the TTFF's New Media section. photo: courtesy E. Wright
New Media
Walking Drawings: Across the Estuaries
The TTFF includes an extensive New Media section inside which was the special Films4Peace section was part of a larger three-day UNESCO peace conference. This program gives some idea of the range of offerings at the festival which focuses on films made in Trinidad and Tobago but then branches out into all sorts of fascinating and curious directions.
"Walking Drawings" (2012, United Kingdom, dir. Everton Wright) was exactly my kind of experimental film: a meditation piece. Wright has created a large-scale environmental work, in this case “sandscapes” right at the Cumbrian shoreline in Northern England.
The piece begins with the artist drawing large rounded shapes in the sand which are then trod by heavy Cumbrian horses. Later, in the section called “Colored People,” the shapes are walked by people of many cultures and colors all dressed in black, then green and finally blue rain ponchos.
We see the horses from a distance. Up close. In silhouette. Out of focus. Then the people.
The piece took three years to make, and through the entire 42 minutes the weather becomes darker and darker and eventually lightens up. The lightness is mirrored in the movements of the walkers who eventually run and spread out, and return and run and return. The film is shot on a Red Camera with gorgeous color and accompanied by a rich track of ocean sounds.
Joanne Butcher is a writer of English and Trinidadian descent who now lives in the Bay Area. Posted on Oct 27, 2013 - 11:13 PM