AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

Lights, cam­era, ac­tion. While these words are com­mon­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with Hol­ly­wood, film stu­dents at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) are no strangers to this process of film­mak­ing and pro­duc­ing high-qual­i­ty con­tent for the big and small screens. Last month, lo­cal film and art en­thu­si­asts gath­ered for a screen­ing by the UWI Film De­part­ment that fea­tured stu­dents’ works from the past aca­d­e­m­ic year. The event is part of the de­part­ment’s an­nu­al tra­di­tion to high­light the cre­ative ef­forts of grad­u­at­ing stu­dents who have honed their skills while pur­su­ing a Bach­e­lor of Arts de­gree in film, the first of its kind at the uni­ver­si­ty and in the Caribbean.

Since in­tro­duc­ing film stud­ies to T&T near­ly 20 years ago, de­gree co­or­di­na­tor Dr Yao Rame­sar not­ed that en­rol­ment num­bers have re­mained steady at the uni­ver­si­ty. This, Dr Rame­sar be­lieves, is due to Trin­bag­o­ni­ans’ knack for sto­ry­telling.

“For stu­dents com­ing to this de­gree, we want to pre­pare them to tell their bril­liant sto­ries be­cause the sto­ries are fan­tas­tic. Some­thing about T&T and sto­ry­telling is one of our ad­van­tages. They take those sto­ries, they dis­til them in­to these films, and they are ready for the re­al world, to com­pete with peo­ple all across the plan­et. We give them that edge,” Dr Rame­sar told Guardian Me­dia.

The de­gree pro­gramme which con­sists of the­o­ret­i­cal film stud­ies and prac­ti­cal film pro­duc­tion, al­lows stu­dents to al­so ex­pand their skills in scriptwrit­ing and di­rect­ing ac­tors in their de­liv­ery on-cam­era.

“We have the most eclec­tic study of films from all over the world. We teach In­di­an cin­e­ma, cin­e­mas of Africa, Latin Amer­i­can cin­e­ma, cin­e­ma and gen­der ... As you see from Net­flix and these plat­forms, the world of cin­e­ma now and in­to the fu­ture, is very much a glob­al one. So you get con­tent from all over. So we are po­si­tion­ing them to slip right in,” he said.

No­table alum­ni like ac­tor Michael Cher­rie, who stars along­side Acad­e­my Award-win­ning ac­tress Regi­na King in the Net­flix biopic “Shirley”, and “Green Days by the Riv­er” di­rec­tor Michael Mooleed­har are just a cou­ple of ex­am­ples of the tal­ents nur­tured at the pro­gramme.

At this year’s screen­ing, the cap­stone the­sis film, The Meat­ing, done by fi­nal-year stu­dents re­ceived rave re­views for its cap­ti­vat­ing cin­e­matog­ra­phy and a riv­et­ing plot. Ac­cord­ing to film di­rec­tor and grad­u­at­ing stu­dent Cas­sidy Peschi­er, since sec­ondary school, she knew that the UWI’s film pro­gramme was where she would end up.

“I learned a lot of the­o­ries and a lot more in-depth as to why we por­tray cer­tain things on screen. On the pro­duc­tion side of it, I’m learn­ing all of the equip­ment, which, to be hon­est, when I first start­ed in 2019, I didn’t know any­thing about cam­eras or any­thing. So along the way I learned and in the film pro­gramme, they pro­vide equip­ment for us, and they guide us along how to use it,” Peschi­er said.

The Meat­ing is a psy­cho­log­i­cal dra­ma/fem­i­nist thriller cen­tred around a wife who goes through var­i­ous emo­tions and re­ac­tions, be­ing a vic­tim of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. Peschi­er said she want­ed a movie that fol­lowed the pro­tag­o­nist’s sto­ry in a vi­su­al­ly aes­thet­ic way that wouldn’t fo­cus main­ly on the abuse. Star­ring Ser­ran Clarke and Pene­lope Spencer, the film was well re­ceived by those in at­ten­dance.

“I’m hap­py to see that, you know, oth­er peo­ple were en­joy­ing it. Some of the feed­back that I got was it had them more of like an ac­tive view­er through­out the en­tire thing. So they were won­der­ing, okay, ‘what is she go­ing to do next?’ Or ‘what’s go­ing to hap­pen next?’ Is she ac­tu­al­ly go­ing to do this, and she’s go­ing to do that? So I was re­al­ly grate­ful for that,” she said.

As Peschi­er con­tin­ues with a ca­reer in di­rect­ing film, she re­mains grate­ful to the UWI and im­plores oth­ers to con­sid­er pur­su­ing film stud­ies. “I would say, any­one who is in­to film or me­dia, or the arts in gen­er­al, just join the UWI film de­gree. Even if you’re in­to the­atre, mu­sic, do a mi­nor in any film course.”