Wes­ley Gib­bings

Two T&T me­dia pi­o­neers were in­duct­ed in­to the Caribbean Broad­cast­ing Union (CBU) Hall of Fame at the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s An­nu­al Gen­er­al As­sem­bly host­ed in Bar­ba­dos (Au­gust 18-20).

Co-founders of Banyan Ltd Christo­pher Laird and Dr Bruce Padding­ton were cred­it­ed with “vi­sion­ary lead­er­ship, pi­o­neer­ing spir­it, and life­long ded­i­ca­tion to Caribbean me­dia, cul­ture, and sto­ry­telling.” The com­pa­ny was launched by these two, to­geth­er with the late Tony Hall in 1981.

By then, Banyan Pro­duc­tions had al­ready been in ex­is­tence for sev­en years—pro­duc­ing in­dige­nous Caribbean video con­tent. In 2004, the team launched Gayelle The Caribbean as the first Caribbean out­fit broad­cast­ing 100 per cent lo­cal and re­gion­al con­tent.

Dr Padding­ton was not in at­ten­dance, but Laird was there to trace, dur­ing his re­sponse to the ac­co­lades, Banyan’s in­volve­ment with the CBU, mov­ing from as­so­ciate to full mem­ber­ship over the years.

In a ci­ta­tion de­liv­ered by CBU board mem­ber and di­rec­tor, Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Pro­duc­tions at Of­fice of the Par­lia­ment of T&T, Colleen Hold­er, Laird was recog­nised for pro­duc­ing “more than 300 ground­break­ing doc­u­men­taries, dra­mas, and tele­vi­sion pro­grammes that have brought the voic­es, faces, and ex­pe­ri­ences of the Caribbean to screens across the re­gion and be­yond.”

“His fear­less ad­vo­ca­cy for cul­ture is well known, es­pe­cial­ly in his per­sis­tence in pro­duc­tion of con­tent in the face of the in­fa­mous ban­ning of Banyan by the then man­age­ment of what was then known as Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT) in 1976,” the ci­ta­tion reads.

To­geth­er with Er­rol Fa­bi­en, Laird al­so es­tab­lished the Caribbean Film and Video Archive, one of the most com­pre­hen­sive col­lec­tions of Caribbean au­dio­vi­su­al ma­te­r­i­al in ex­is­tence.

Dr Padding­ton was cred­it­ed with shap­ing “the Caribbean cin­e­mat­ic land­scape with dis­tinc­tion, cre­ativ­i­ty, and un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion” in a ci­ta­tion read by Dionne John, gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Na­tion­al Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (NBC) of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

“A schol­ar and ed­u­ca­tor of in­ter­na­tion­al re­pute, Dr Padding­ton played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the es­tab­lish­ment of the Bach­e­lor of Arts Film Pro­gramme at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine,” says the ci­ta­tion.

In 2006, Dr Padding­ton found­ed and led di­rec­tion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Fes­ti­val. His role as fes­ti­val di­rec­tor con­tin­ued un­til 2019.

His award was re­ceived at the in­duc­tion cer­e­mo­ny by Lin­da Moore on his be­half, and pre­sent­ed by Er­ic Falt, UN­ESCO Re­gion­al Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Caribbean, while Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley was at hand to present to Laird.