Sean Nero

British film-mak­er Uz­ma Hasan be­lieves ex­cit­ing times await this coun­try's emerg­ing film in­dus­try. But she said the true suc­cess in this cre­ative econ­o­my will not be shaped by di­rec­tors and pro­duc­ers alone, how­ev­er. Hasan ex­plained that the role of the movie view­ing pub­lic must be un­so­licit­ed and they must de­mand to see movies that rep­re­sent them. She made it clear that film mak­ing had many com­po­nents and apart from fi­nan­cial in­vest­ments in projects be­ing un­der­tak­en, unswerv­ing pub­lic sup­port was a cru­cial fac­tor to give rise to T&T's film in­dus­try am­bi­tions. One month af­ter the pre­mier and cul­mi­na­tion of the T&T Film Fes­ti­val and now the start of the Eu­ro­pean Film Fes­ti­val, Hasan pre­dict­ed very ex­cit­ing times ahead. "It re­minds me a lot of South Amer­i­ca, places like Brazil and Mex­i­co, when the film in­dus­tries and in­de­pen­dent film mak­ing re­al­ly took off there," said Hasan, an in­de­pen­dent pro­duc­er, last Wednes­day at Movi­eTowne.

She added: "They were telling sto­ries that were 100 per cent their own, but they were very com­mer­cial and were well told, and I think that's the best case sce­nario for T&T...to take on board their won­der­ful her­itage and cul­ture and un­der­stand it and then com­mu­ni­cate it to a glob­al au­di­ence." She was the guest of the British Coun­cil, at the 14th EU Film Fes­ti­val, rep­re­sent­ing UK film mak­ing and in­de­pen­dent cre­ative arts, as well as the pre­mier of her lat­est work, The In­fi­del. The film had al­ready been re­leased in over 18 ter­ri­to­ries to com­mer­cial and crit­i­cal ac­claim. She un­der­scored the im­por­tance of telling sto­ries through the film medi­um in a way that was not just en­ter­tain­ing, but ac­ces­si­ble to glob­al au­di­ences. She ad­mit­ted that fail­ing to iden­ti­fy au­di­ences was a com­mon mis­take among film mak­ers, es­pe­cial­ly those now start­ing off.

More of­ten than not, their au­di­ences, she said, were friends and fam­i­ly. "There has to be some­body who is sit­ting in New York who can un­der­stand their film. "A good ex­am­ple of this was the film 'City of God' which is very true to Brazil, but the way it's told... with such en­er­gy... with such pas­sion...with such an un­der­stand­ing for genre and film mak­ing, and sto­ry shap­ing. The shape of the sto­ry is some­thing that every­one can un­der­stand from In­dia to the UK." She said tri­al and er­ror was the on­ly way for emerg­ing film in­dus­tries to get things right. Be­ing in T&T for the film fair marked Hasan's first trip to the Caribbean. The pas­sion ex­pressed by lo­cal in­dus­try prac­ti­tion­ers to Hasan dur­ing her short time had her im­pressed. Hasan in con­vinced that T&T is an ide­al coun­try for the pre­mier of her film since it tack­les is­sues re­lat­ed to dif­fer­ent cul­tures and com­mu­ni­ties com­ing to­geth­er.She said, "It's ex­cit­ing be­cause you have every­thing to play for.

I met with a whole load of Trinida­di­an film-mak­ers and it was very ex­cit­ing to see the dif­fer­ent types of sto­ries com­ing to­geth­er. I re­al­ly hope these film fes­ti­vals are go­ing to alert the wider com­mu­ni­ty in­to get­ting in­volved in the arts and film mak­ing. And, not just film mak­ing, but sup­port­ing in­de­pen­dent films and call­ing for more film screen­ings from lo­cal prod­ucts." Shar­ing her knowl­edge in this area, Hasan un­der­scored the need for film-mak­ers and au­di­ences to con­nect and ex­pressed hope that on her re­turn to T&T next year Movi­eTowne would be show­ing one lo­cal film a week along­side the list of Amer­i­can films. "Out of the ten peo­ple who are mak­ing films, one of them would be an in­cred­i­ble tal­ent­ed film mak­er, and it's not and easy thing to do, and it is not an easy thing to do on your own.

"You can paint a pic­ture on your own. You can take a pic­ture on your own. If you're an artist you can sculpt on your own, but film mak­ing is some­thing that needs your vi­sion and the sup­port, fi­nan­cial help and tech­ni­cal help of lots and lots of peo­ple," said Hasan.

About Uz­ma Hasan

Uz­ma Hasan is an in­de­pen­dent pro­duc­er whose most re­cent fea­ture The In­fi­del was re­leased in over 18 ter­ri­to­ries to com­mer­cial and crit­i­cal ac­claim. In ad­di­tion to her own de­vel­op­ment slate, she con­sults for tal­ent man­age­ment and sales com­pa­nies in the UK and US.

Whilst at Sling­shot Pro­duc­tions, Hasan worked on project se­lec­tion, de­vel­op­ment and pack­ag­ing on all of the com­pa­ny's films and was as­so­ciate pro­duc­er on Tor­ment­ed. She sits on se­lec­tion com­mit­tees for Mi­ra Nair's MAISHA Labs, the British In­de­pen­dent Film Awards and is Lon­don Chap­ter Head of Har­vard­wood, the of­fi­cial net­work of Har­vard alum­ni in the en­ter­tain­ment and me­dia in­dus­tries. Hasan has worked on both sides of the At­lantic in the in­de­pen­dent and stu­dio sec­tor, in­clud­ing with Fo­cus Fea­tures and Tribeca Film Fes­ti­val, on the de­vel­op­ment, pro­duc­tion and ex­ploita­tion of fea­ture films. As a con­sul­tant at Ogilvy PR, she man­aged in­ter­na­tion­al ac­counts in­clud­ing NEC, Ver­i­zon and NTT Do­Co­Mo. She grad­u­at­ed from Cardiff Uni­ver­si­ty with first class ho­n­ours in Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture and stud­ied film and lit­er­a­ture at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty's Grad­u­ate School of Arts and Sci­ences as a Kennedy Schol­ar.