Cherisse Moe

Roger Alex­is can be con­sid­ered the next big thing in the lo­cal film in­dus­try, af­ter prov­ing him­self with his first movie, I'm San­tana. The pop­u­lar pup­pet short film se­ries of the same name be­came an in­stant In­ter­net sen­sa­tion two years ago, ap­peal­ing to view­ers across the globe. And now, Alex­is, the voice be­hind the main pup­pet, San­tana and the mas­ter­mind be­hind the movie, has tak­en it up a cou­ple notch­es and by the looks of it, he's hit the jack­pot. Last Wednes­day evening, me­dia and fans got the chance to view the high­ly-an­tic­i­pat­ed pre­miere at Caribbean Cin­e­mas 8, Trinci­ty Mall, Trinci­ty. Three ear­li­er screen­ings of the movie that day were sold out. From the time the show be­gan, laugh­ter erupt­ed from mem­bers of the au­di­ence, who were clear­ly fa­mil­iar with all the char­ac­ters, as they shout­ed out things like: "Buh what hap­pen to Nar­ine. He re­al dot­tish eh?"and "Ogosh, Pat­sy yuh bad girl!"

The sto­ry­line is cre­ative and comedic and is cen­tred around the film's main char­ac­ters, San­tana, Jan­ice, Kizzy, Raj, Nar­ine, Pasty, Sokdeo, Miss Mil­ly and the not so spir­i­tu­al, Pas­tor Stew­art. In the 73 minute fea­ture film, San­tana is forced to take a long look at him­self as heartache caus­es him to re­alise what and who he had lost. The same could be said for "loud mouth" Pat­sy, known for abus­ing her hus­band, Nar­ine, who sport­ed a black eye through­out the movie. And when it came to Pas­tor Stew­art, well, let's just say that the words "you can run but you can't hide" proved true in his case. The movie is not rec­om­mend­ed for chil­dren though, due to some ob­scene lan­guage, Tri­ni style.

Up close and per­son­al

Be­fore the movie launch, San­tana along with his fel­low pup­pets and re­al life mod­els cre­at­ed a stir when they made their grand en­trance, pulling up in the the­atre's carpark at about 6.50 pm, in a black lim­ou­sine. Cu­ri­ous on­look­ers and fans whipped out their cam­era phones as they seized the rare op­por­tu­ni­ty to meet the pop­u­lar char­ac­ters up close and per­son­al. Alex­is, the own­er of Lexo TV, the pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny be­hind the movie, said he be­gan shoot­ing the film sev­en months ago and was "to­tal­ly over­whelmed" by all the sup­port and pos­i­tive feed­back. He told the T&T Guardian that while he and his cast had many sleep­less nights work­ing on the movie, they were hap­py to see the fruits of their labour.

"You'll al­ways dream and ex­pect some sort of suc­cess and if you are hum­ble enough, it will hap­pen," he said."I want to thank all the fans for sup­port­ing us, sup­port­ing some­thing lo­cal and I'll try my best to keep en­ter­tain­ing them in years to come. They made it what it is." UWI film stu­dent Karis­sa Nar­ine, who was present to take in the pre­miere, said Alex­is has now paved the way for up­com­ing lo­cal film mak­ers to take their crafts to a high­er lev­el. "He's set­ting the foun­da­tion for the rest of us, she said. "This to me is his­to­ry mak­ing." So, will there be an I'm San­tana part 2? "Yes, most def­i­nite­ly," Alex­is said. "There will be a part sev­en if they'll al­low me!"

• Catch I'm San­tana The Movie now at Caribbean Cin­e­mas 8, I MAX, Port-of-Spain and Na­tion­al Cin­e­ma, San Fer­nan­do.

The I'm San­tana Cast in­cludes

• Nar­ine - Kevin Macurine

• Pat­sy - Avis Hold­er

• Jan­ice - Karys­sa Bab­wah

• Pas­tor Stew­art - Gyasi Gon­za­les

• Miss Mil­ly - Gyasi Gon­za­les

• Sokdeo-Ryan Steeple

• Kizzy -Ar­lene Williams

• Raj - Gy­ron Quan