Next year will be a "bumper year" for local film, with at least ten feature-length films set for release, the new chair of the T&T Film Company (TTFC) has said.Among those in the works is the film acting debut of soca star Machel Montano in Scandalous. Within the last two months, three films have seen successful runs in local theatres and one has been released on DVD."This is unprecedented," said the film company's chair Robert "Yao" Ramesar about the spate of film releases. Ramesar, a filmmaker himself and head of UWI's Film Programme, has been chair of the TTFC since August. "I think the time for talking about creating a film industry is past. We're creating one now. And we're consolidating it."
There's been some talk of disquiet at the TTFC, which is now a subsidiary of the recently created state company CreativeTT. CreativeTT, which oversees film, fashion and music development in the country, has seen its own share of controversy, including objections to its establishment.Film Co chair Allison Smith and board member Camille Selvon-Abrahams, both appointed earlier this year, resigned. It was rumoured that CEO Carla Foderingham is also no longer with company. But Ramesar said that as far as he is aware, Foderingham is on vacation leave and expected to return. He said he's "not sure" why Smith and Selvon-Abrahams resigned.
Jamil Agard, who had been a production consultant at the company since June 2013, is acting CEO. The board is operating with just three members, said Ramesar, and is putting in a lot of late nights. "It's a lot of work to be done. We have a lot of plans for 2015," he said.Ramesar said he hopes that within ten years, film in T&T becomes "a billion-dollar industry" and that the country has one of the highest number of filmmakers per capita in the world. He hopes to make filmmaking 1.5 or two per cent of the country's GDP.It's an industry that involves more than just movies, he said."Film deals with so many areas: it touches on soundtracks; it touches on fashion and costume design," he said. "There are so many ancillary areas–carpenters, transport, catering, hairdressing, make up."When people speak about the stakeholders in the film industry I believe it's not just the practitioners. I believe the whole country is a stakeholder. Every citizen has a stake in it."
Ramesar said the TTFC plans to more actively seek out and develop film talent. He wants to find the film equivalent of Olympic gold medallist Keshorn Walcott, he said."The next genius is out there. We're going to find them. There's so much talent out there. We need to mine that talent and bring it to the fore," he said.Ramesar created more than 120 film and TV productions in a career that has spanned three decades. He won an Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence in 2006 for his contribution to arts and letters.Regarding his ability to steer the film company into the future, he said his accomplishments "speak for themselves."