Pan! Our Music Odyssey opens at cinemas across T&T on November 5. It can be seen at Cinemas 8 Trincity, MovieTowne, Digicel IMAX and Empire Cinema, San Fernando.
This 90-minute docudrama tells two stories, a fictionalised account of the birth of the steelpan 70 years ago and a story about musicians who have come to Trinidad from all over the world to participate in the annual Panorama competition.
Some of T&T's best known actors appear in the film, including Errol Fabien, Penelope Spencer, Che Rodriguez, and Conrad Parris. The film's hero is Goldteeth, played by emerging young talent Renaldo Frederick.
The film which made its local premiere at the recent T&T Film Festival also features some of the leading lights of the steelpan movement, including Len "Boogsie" Sharpe and Phase II Pan Groove, Andy Narell and Birdsong, Trinidad All Stars, Despers and some of the players and musicians that come from all over the world to experience our national instrument.
Pan! Our Music Odyssey, written by pan historian and head of the Carnival Institute Dr Kim Johnson, tells the story of T&T's national instrument and the young people of Laventille who were involved in its creation. Directed by French director Thierry Teston, it was filmed entirely in Trinidad and features a cast and crew of over 300 nationals.
The film's producers feel it's a timely intervention to show that even in the face of adversity, T&T's young people are capable of creating an instrument that can, 70 years later, have a huge and positive impact on the world.
The film weaves vignettes of pivotal moments in the pre-history and history of pan from 1820 to 1963, from the banning of slave drum dances, to the steelband battles, with today's narrative of the Panorama competition, in which various pan players from T&T and abroad join the bands to prepare for the big stage.
Jevanni, a ten-year-old boy from east Port-of-Spain, struggles to qualify to play in Trinidad All Stars, the band founded by his grandfather. Eva, a footloose 27-year-old Frenchwoman in Trinidad for the first time, hopes to play on the big night–the Panorama finals, the dream of her recently-deceased father. There is also the story of the Japanese players who love the pan but can barely speak English and hope to play with Phase II Pan Groove in Panorama finals at the Queen's Park Savannah.
The film's Web site explains, "Their stories are interlaced with re-enactments of the rags-to-riches tale of the steelband movement, which was born into poverty and violence but climbed to the highest levels of social and artistic acceptance without losing its life-or-death urgency."
Big plans for Pan!
The film was screened at Globe Cinema to open the T&T Film Festival in September, and Jean-Michel Gibert, its producer, recently returned from attending the Womex Music and Film market in Spain, where the film was selected for professional screening.
"The feedback was extremely positive and we are in negotiations to screen the film in Paris, South Africa and Miami for 2015," Gibert said.
He also hopes the film will be able to partner with Odyssey Steel Orchestra, featuring Ray Holman, next summer in France.
A DVD of the film and a booklet about it are distributed by record label Harmonia Mundi.
"We are very proud to start our mission to feature steelband abroad and we hope that when it premieres on November 5, people will turn out in their numbers. In this way, they will be able to help us tremendously to give credibility abroad for the film," Gibert said.