The plot for the Lu­mi­na movie is riv­et­ing.

Writ­ten by Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al Gi­no McK­oy the movie fol­lows “a man’s ob­ses­sion for his girl­friend af­ter she dis­ap­pears in a blind­ing light, go­ing in search of her, he dis­cov­ers the truth that will change both of their lives, for­ev­er ."

It is there­fore no won­der that Lu­mi­na is list­ed as a Sci-Fi Ac­tion Thriller.

The be­hind-the-scenes to get the movie off the ground, how­ev­er, is an un­be­liev­able dra­ma.

Af­ter hav­ing a num­ber of agen­cies say they could not com­mit to a di­rec­tor for Lu­mi­na, Trinidad and To­ba­go screen writer Gi­no McK­oy de­cid­ed to di­rect the fea­ture him­self.

Gi­no and his moth­er Lyn­da were able to suc­cess­ful­ly se­cure a wide re­lease ser­vice dis­tri­b­u­tion deal in 2019, for 2000-2500 screens in the US & Cana­da with En­ter­tain­ment Stu­dio Mo­tion Pic­tures in­clud­ing out­put deals with Li­on­s­gate, Net­flix and Film­Na­tion.

It took 18 months to ne­go­ti­ate with ESMP's three lawyers, Gi­no, Lyn­da and their lawyer Rosen. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the wide re­lease was no longer an op­tion when the COVID 19 pan­dem­ic hit as the film econ­o­my was at a stand­still with clo­sure of all the­atres and al­most ze­ro film pro­duc­tions.

Gi­no and his par­ents, Lyn­da and Hud­son, de­cid­ed to con­tin­ue work­ing on pre-pro­duc­tion and then re­vis­it dis­tri­b­u­tion af­ter com­ple­tion of the film.

In 2020, the trio was still very hope­ful Lu­mi­na would be pro­duced, so they re­viewed var­i­ous lo­ca­tions to shoot, such as Cana­da, the US, Tunisia and Mal­ta. They even­tu­al­ly se­lect­ed Mo­roc­co with its great desert lo­ca­tions, pic­turesque land­scapes, snow­capped moun­tains, his­toric stu­dio space, good weath­er and ex­pe­ri­enced film crew.

Lu­mi­na would be the first Sci-fi movie shot in Mo­roc­co, with the largest in­te­ri­or sets ever built in Africa.

The movie need­ed fi­nanc­ing, Lyn­da the CEO and Pres­i­dent of Goldove En­ter­tain­ment turned to one of her long­time friend David Sey­chell whom she first met in 1994 when she was his Ex­ec­u­tive Banker and Fi­nan­cial Ad­vi­sor.

Sey­chell was fly­ing his pri­vate plane to avoid crowds in the air­ports, he flew from Bramp­ton, On­tario to Om­a­ha, cleared cus­toms and fu­elled up, then a stop and fu­el, in Bue­na Vista, Col­orado be­fore the fi­nal leg to Van Nuys, Cal­i­for­nia. But due to in­clement weath­er and the high al­ti­tude, Sey­chell ex­pe­ri­enced a plane crash in the Col­orado moun­tains.

Sey­chell's plane was burnt to the ground, and he sus­tained crit­i­cal in­juries and life threat­en­ing burns af­ter jump­ing and crawl­ing out of the flames.

The am­bu­lance crew and fire­men search­ing the scene heard one faint shout "here" through the thick black smoke, be­fore Sey­chell passed out.

It was a mir­a­cle.

When the McK­oys vis­it­ed the wreck­age, they no­ticed that David's pro­duc­er's pa­per con­tract sur­vived the fire. The de­ci­sion to con­tin­ue was agreed, Lu­mi­na was fi­nal­ly go­ing in­to full pro­duc­tion.

Sey­chell is now ac­tive again in sports and trav­el­ling while still un­der­go­ing some fi­nal treat­ment in Toron­to.

While in Mo­roc­co the is­sues con­tin­ued.

The movie has able to over­come these and oth­er chal­lenges.

Lu­mi­na which was writ­ten and di­rect­ed by Gi­no McK­oy will be screened in Los An­ge­les to­day at Re­gal Cin­e­mas at La Live.