Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

The NGO For­ward Ever Foun­da­tion (FEF) col­lab­o­rat­ed with ac­claimed Amer­i­can film­mak­er Ma­son Richards to host a Screen­writ­ing Mas­ter­class which was held on Sat­ur­day 27. CLI­CO spon­sored the event.

Richards, who was born in Guyana, has an im­pres­sive back­ground in the film in­dus­try, and is a Pro­fes­sor of film di­rect­ing, screen­writ­ing, and act­ing for the cam­era at Emer­son Col­lege, Los An­ge­les. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he serves as a reg­u­lar ‘Film­mak­er in Res­i­dence’ at Itha­ca Col­lege, New York.

The Screen­writ­ing Mas­ter­class was at­tend­ed by 30 mem­bers of the St. James Po­lice Youth Club (SJPYC). They had the chance to delve in­to cul­tur­al film projects and were pro­vid­ed with guid­ance from both Richards and Christo­pher Din Chong, Chair­man of NGO For­ward Ever Foun­da­tion, who showed them how to bring their sto­ries to life. This train­ing was in­stru­men­tal in de­vel­op­ing both their pro­fes­sion­al and life skills. As work with the SJPYC pro­gress­es, they will con­tin­ue to ex­plore un­tapped cul­tur­al and folk­lore themed sto­ries.

Din Chong said the SJPYC was cho­sen to ben­e­fit from the Mas­ter­class due to its pro­gres­sive na­ture as an NGO, and its long-stand­ing pos­i­tive in­flu­ence on the lives of young peo­ple. He said, “Both of our or­gan­i­sa­tions have sim­i­lar goals, and we are pleased to roll out in­no­v­a­tive pro­grammes that will seek to em­pow­er our youth and pro­vide ca­reer guid­ance.”

Film­mak­er and Cre­ative Di­rec­tor, Pro­fes­sor Ma­son Richards, renowned for his award-win­ning short film “The Sea­wall,” served as in­struc­tor in the Mas­ter­class. Mr. Richards is al­so in pre-pro­duc­tion for the fea­ture film “Be­yond The Sea­wall” which will be fa­cil­i­tat­ed by FEF’s Film Concierge Ser­vice and will pro­vide SJPYC par­tic­i­pants with prac­ti­cal film set ex­po­sure. The Film re­volves around a young man who, af­ter fac­ing var­i­ous chal­lenges in his life, makes the de­ci­sion to re­turn to Guyana to sell his grand­moth­er’s house. Dur­ing his jour­ney, he stum­bles up­on mem­o­ries from his child­hood in Guyana.

Richards said, “As a Pro­fes­sor of Film in Los An­ge­les, it’s a deeply mean­ing­ful and per­son­al mis­sion to ed­u­cate the next gen­er­a­tion of film­mak­ers, not just in Hol­ly­wood but al­so in the Caribbean di­as­po­ra, in­clud­ing Trinidad and Guyana. Teach­ing brings me im­mense joy, and dur­ing my pur­suit of a mas­ter’s de­gree in film, I not on­ly gained valu­able knowl­edge of the craft and the in­dus­try, but al­so dis­cov­ered more about my­self. There is a lot of pow­er in the abil­i­ty to shape a nar­ra­tive or sto­ry. It de­mands in­tro­spec­tion and a firm per­spec­tive on the world. This is my dri­ving force in ed­u­cat­ing young in­di­vid­u­als, to cre­ate space for them to use their pow­er.”

The train­ing of these young in­di­vid­u­als of the St. James Po­lice Youth Club (SJPYC) is aligned with a larg­er ob­jec­tive of nur­tur­ing the de­vel­op­ment of the re­gion­al film in­dus­try. Ac­cord­ing to Mr. Din Chong, de­vel­op­ing a thriv­ing film in­dus­try has the po­ten­tial to make a sub­stan­tial im­pact on the eco­nom­ic growth of Caribbean na­tions, “The re­gion­al film in­dus­try can gen­er­ate rev­enue through film pro­duc­tion and tourism, cre­ate jobs, and de­vel­op an­cil­lary ser­vices like cater­ing, trans­porta­tion, and ac­com­mo­da­tion. The Caribbean pos­sess­es a cap­ti­vat­ing and mul­ti­fac­eted cul­tur­al her­itage that has the po­ten­tial to be pre­sent­ed to a glob­al au­di­ence through the medi­um of film. Films shot in the Caribbean can be in­cred­i­bly ef­fec­tive in boost­ing tourism through their cap­ti­vat­ing vi­su­als and en­tic­ing sto­ry­telling. Through the im­ple­men­ta­tion of train­ing pro­grams, work­shops, and ed­u­ca­tion­al ini­tia­tives, the Caribbean has the po­ten­tial to fos­ter a tal­ent­ed work­force that can great­ly con­tribute to the in­dus­try’s achieve­ments.”

In the com­ing months, Pro­fes­sor Richards will be in­stru­men­tal as a men­tor and cre­ative con­sul­tant. He, along with his com­pa­ny, The A.M. Cre­ative Agency, will con­tin­ue to work close­ly with the FEF to es­tab­lish con­nec­tions with pro­fes­sion­als in the in­ter­na­tion­al in­dus­try and sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of a ro­bust and self-sus­tain­ing film in­dus­try in the re­gion.