Bo­bie-Lee Dixon

Last year lo­cal film­mak­er Sean Hodgkin­son reached a mile­stone when his first film, A Sto­ry About Wendy, got ac­cept­ed in­to the pres­ti­gious Zanz­ibar In­ter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val. This year he was equal­ly grat­i­fied when the se­quel, A Sto­ry About Wendy 2, was wel­comed at the same fes­ti­val in Ju­ly.

Hodgkin­son said last year in Zanz­ibar the film was screened in a small ho­tel room, but was so pop­u­lar, an ad­di­tion­al screen­ing had to be sched­uled. This year, 800 peo­ple viewed the pre­miere of the se­quel, which was shown along with part one at the his­tor­i­cal Old Fort in Bag­amoyo, Tan­za­nia. He de­scribed the ex­pe­ri­ence as sur­re­al and mag­i­cal.

"Watch­ing a film you made with friends un­der a star­lit sky, halfway across the world. What more can you ask for?"

The Quirky Films CEO said he al­so re­ceived rave re­views from the au­di­ence there, which in­clud­ed lo­cals, tourists and ex­pats.

"Some of them ex­pressed their con­tent­ment with the film. They al­so point­ed out that it cap­tured the is­sue of fem­i­nism in the work­place and I think what was par­tic­u­lar­ly most flat­ter­ing was when one au­di­ence mem­ber said A Sto­ry About Wendy was like the Caribbean's ver­sion of David Lynch's Twin Peaks," said a glee­ful Hodgkin­son.

He al­so spoke about T&T's film in­dus­try on sev­er­al tele­vi­sion pro­grammes while he was in Zani­bar.

A Sto­ry About Wendy 2 made its Caribbean pre­miere at the T&T Film Fes­ti­val in Sep­tem­ber, where it won the Peo­ple's Choice Award.

"I was re­al­ly shocked. Win­ning that was in­sane be­cause I had no ex­pec­ta­tion on that lev­el. I mean I knew the film was get­ting some cur­rent, but I did not ex­pect this."

He said the achieve­ment was just a re­flec­tion of the hard work that went in­to mak­ing both films.

Hodgkin­son said he found au­di­ences in T&T have be­come more sup­port­ive of lo­cal films but some more ap­pre­ci­a­tion and en­cour­age­ment would go a long way.

"Peo­ple don't un­der­stand how long it takes to make and com­plete a film and the ef­fort that goes in­to it. In­stead they just crit­i­cise. Do you know how cool it is to walk in­to Dig­i­cel Imax and see your film's poster next to Drac­u­la and Pan?"

Hodgkin­son, who is cur­rent­ly shoot­ing his third film, Traf­fic, which high­lights the drug trade be­tween T&T and the Amer­i­c­as, al­so be­lieves the fact that A Sto­ry About Wendy 2 was backed by more spon­sors this time around, shows cor­po­rate T&T is will­ing to sup­port and in­vest in lo­cal pro­duc­tions.

Asked what movie lovers could look for­ward to in a Sto­ry About Wendy 2, Hodgkin­son said: "I will not give too much away. All I can say is those who saw A Sto­ry About Wendy part one can look for­ward to a more in­ter­est­ing sto­ry line and a stronger cast."

I write what I know

While Hodgkin­son is ex­treme­ly hap­py about the large­ly pos­i­tive re­cep­tion to the film, the Diego Mar­tin res­i­dent al­so ac­knowl­edges some un­favourable crit­i­cism. One crit­ic he took to task was T&T Guardian colum­nist Ray­mond Ram­char­i­tar, whose re­view of A Sto­ry About Wendy 2 on Oc­to­ber 29 was scathing.

Ram­char­i­tar de­scribed the film as "naive" and took is­sue with what he saw as stereo­typ­ing in the movie. "The mat­ter-of-fact trans­mis­sion of the film­mak­er's world­view, his con­cep­tion of the so­ci­ety, seems to be com­plete­ly un­con­scious, and quite dis­turb­ing," Ram­char­i­tar wrote. "That world is arranged with the 'white' peo­ple on top, black on the bot­tom, lit­tle else dis­cernible in be­tween."

But Hodgkin­son de­fend­ed his movie by say­ing he was writ­ing about a re­al­i­ty that he un­der­stood.

"I am bring­ing to the screen what I know. I can­not write about what I have no clue about," he said. "Fur­ther­more, this is a fun movie. And why must we act like stereo­types don't ex­ist? Why can't we make fun of it and just laugh at our­selves?

"We live in so­ci­ety that out­right­ly prac­tices clas­sism and all of us can at­test to these stereo­types ex­ist­ing right here.

"A Sto­ry About Wendy is re­al­ly based on my re­al-life ex­pe­ri­ence at a place where I worked. So it's not even about pick­ing some­body and just say­ing, 'This role is for you.' It is about cast­ing the peo­ple who could best bring to life the char­ac­ters that I re­al­ly en­coun­tered."

Hodgkin­son said it all boiled down to taste. "Some peo­ple like Sex and The City, oth­ers like Trans­form­ers. If you are look­ing for 63 min­utes to pass the time and en­joy some good Tri­ni hu­mour, then A Sto­ry About Wendy 2 is for you. If you like it, you like it and if you don't, then you dont's.

Where to see it, who's in it

A Sto­ry About Wendy 2 will pre­miere at Dig­i­cel Imax to­mor­row at 5.30 pm, along with an­oth­er lo­cal pro­duc­tion, Pan! Our Mu­sic Odyssey, a fea­ture-length docu­d­ra­ma about the con­tem­po­rary steel­band move­ment and its ori­gins writ­ten by pan his­to­ri­an Dr Kim John­son.

A Sto­ry about Wendy 2 stars Hei­di Wal­cott as Wendy and Cather­ine Em­manuel as the the evil pro­tag­o­nist Si­mone Davies.

Al­so star­ring are Ayan­na Cezanne, Karisse Mon­tano, Mar­cia Henville, Garth Voisin, Car­o­line Tay­lor, Brent Ben­gochea, Hal­cian Pierre, Lau­ra Dowrich-Phillips and Gi­na Paris.