As told to BC Pires

My name is Christo­pher Guin­ness and my short film, Pothound, was a fi­nal­ist in the Vimeo Short Film of the Year award in New York last Thurs­day. I made Pothound with my wife, pro­duc­er, co-di­rec­tor and best friend Leizelle Guin­ness. And our dog, Bub­bercin. I wish my last name was good for a com­pli­men­ta­ry drink. I've tried time and time again, St Pat­ty's Day, in dif­fer­ent coun­tries, etc. Had to pay every time.

I'm from San­do. Gor­don Street. I at­tend­ed-well, bare­ly at­tend­ed-AS­JA. I'd go to school in the morn­ing, then find my way to Gulf City Mall around lunch. Got re­al­ly good at Street Fight­er 2 Tur­bo and Wres­tle Fest. Stay in school chil­dren! Ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion was the an­i­ma­tion pow­er­house tech­ni­cal in­sti­tu­tion, Sheri­dan Col­lege. I was chris­tened an An­gli­can. Both my par­ents are on­ly re­li­gious when it fits their ar­gu­ment.

As a child, I was a Maradona fan be­cause he was the lit­tle guy dom­i­nat­ing at all cost, even sports­man­ship. I sup­port the So­ca War­riors and West In­dies. Which has helped me learn to deal with dis­ap­point­ment. My ear­li­est mem­o­ry is the Young and Rest­less theme and my aunt and moth­er get­ting all ex­cit­ed. When­ev­er I heard that song I knew I was go­ing to have qual­i­ty alone-time for at least an hour.

You learn a lot about re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, loy­al­ty and, of course, deal­ing with loss, hav­ing a pet. I have a day job in ad­ver­tis­ing, the in­dus­try "cre­ative" peo­ple get in­to when they don't get to do what they want­ed to do as a kid. The painter be­comes the graph­ic artist, the nov­el­ist a copy­writer. And the tro­phy wife an ac­count ex­ec­u­tive. My favourite book is the Bible, the great­est se­lec­tion of short sto­ries ever writ­ten.

The TV was my third par­ent. So the re­la­tion­ship with film start­ed as a tod­dler. The Ten Com­mand­ments was the first film to im­press me. Good Lord! It still holds up to­day. The most epic sto­ry, the set pieces, the gor­geous women and Yul Bryn­ner's Rame­ses! I walked around for weeks as a kid say­ing "Moses, Moses, Moses" and nod­ding my head in a cocky man­ner.

I'll watch any genre but I've been en­joy­ing Ko­re­an cin­e­ma, Joon-ho Bong and Chan-wook Park, as of late. I rel­ish how they mix tragedy with com­e­dy and yet keep it sus­pense­ful. And the act­ing, which by West­ern stan­dards would be con­sid­ered aw­ful, works amaz­ing­ly well and feels nat­ur­al. They found their own style, some­thing I hope Caribbean cin­e­ma will even­tu­al­ly dis­cov­er and em­ploy.

I've had many favourite movies and they change as I age. As a child, the first Star Wars as a teen, Fight Club. Now, it's hard to nar­row down. A cou­ple of years ago I would have said it would be Mary and Max, a nice­ly told sto­ry about an un­like­ly friend­ship.

I guess Kubrick would be my favourite film­mak­er, for his body of work and vi­sion­ary style. Spiel­berg, Cameron and Lu­cas for push­ing the tech­no­log­i­cal side of film-mak­ing. Taran­ti­no, Finch­er and Noe for show­ing the de­prav­i­ty of hu­man na­ture. Howard and Chap­lin for giv­ing us hope.

I suck at telling a sto­ry ver­bal­ly. I ei­ther rush the punch­line or my de­liv­ery is too dry. So I be­came a film­mak­er. My first film was in 2001, a mock film on the first X-Box called The XXX Box. It was tru­ly aw­ful. The tur­tle scenes in Pothound were shot in May 2011, the rest in Oc­to­ber. I al­ways want­ed to do a dog film but kept putting it off for more com­mer­cial projects. But when my dog Bell died I took ac­tion. Do­ing the film was a hy­brid of a long-planned goal and a heal­ing process com­ing to­geth­er.

The end­ing of Pothound al­ways was the plan. The script dealt with the sup­port­ing char­ac­ter's pre­con­ceived no­tion of how "wot­less" a pothound is. Every time the dog tries to do some­thing help­ful she is per­ceived as do­ing some­thing mis­chie­vous. I want­ed the au­di­ence to em­pathise with her plight of liv­ing with un­just stig­ma.

The best thing about mak­ing Pothound were the lit­tle mo­ments where Bub­bercin's act­ing tran­scend­ed ex­pec­ta­tion. The worst was bad weath­er. A Tri­ni is a pro­fes­sion­al limer. Trinidad and To­ba­go is a source of in­spi­ra­tion above the lim­i­ta­tions. It's strong po­ten­tial try­ing to over­come con­stant dis­ap­point­ment.