News

Yesterday, we shared the news that season 2 of the Apple TV+ thriller series Surface, which stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, is set to premiere on Friday, February 21st. Now, Variety reports that Mbatha-Raw has signed on to star in a thriller mini-series called Inheritance, a Sky Original. Jonny Lee Miller (Covenant), Sheldon Shepherd (Bob Marley: One Love), and Bel Powley (The Morning Show) star alongside Mbatha-Raw.

Written and created by Karla Crome (Carnival Row) from an original idea by Jefferson Bannis, Inheritance is being directed by Storm Saulter (Sprinter) and produced by Snowed-In Productions, in association with Sky Studios. The show is described as being a five-part limited event series that takes place in Bristol, U.K. and Jamaica, and it will tackle the enduring legacy of colonialism. Mbatha-Raw is taking on the role of Claudia, an ambitious young bi-racial lawyer who embarks on a journey to Jamaica to challenge an...

Gugu Mbatha-Raw (“Surface”) will star opposite Jonny Lee Miller (“Covenant”), Sheldon Shepherd (“Bob Marley: One Love”) and Bel Powley (“The Morning Show”) in “Inheritance,” a Sky Original thriller from Karla Crome (“Carnival Row”).

Set in Bristol, U.K. and Jamaica, “Inheritance” is a five-part limited event series tackling the enduring legacy of colonialism. Soon entering production, the mini-series is directed by Storm Saulter (“Sprinter”) and produced by Snowed-In Productions, in association with Sky Studios.

Mbatha-Raw stars as Claudia, an ambitious young bi-racial lawyer who embarks on a journey to Jamaica to challenge an inheritance claim filed by an unknown local resident, Cudjoe East (Sheldon Shepherd), against Oliver Connaught (Jonny Lee-Miller), a wealthy white aristocrat.

Claudia’s “quest takes an unexpected turn when the contested estate reveals the ominous house that has haunted her nightmares: the Connaught family’s Jamaican plantation, Hope Hill. As Claudia and Oliver investigate, they uncover a...

Sky has unveiled an ambitious new limited series, “Inheritance,” a five-part drama about the enduring shadows of colonialism. The series, anchored by BAFTA-nominated actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw, will begin filming in the United Kingdom and Jamaica this month. Karla Crome wrote the novella, which explores themes of racial conflict, judicial drama, and the complications of historical reckoning.

Mbatha-Raw plays Claudia, a determined biracial lawyer embroiled in a high-stakes legal battle for an inheritance. Her investigation leads her to Hope Hill, a Jamaican plantation originally owned by the Connaught family, where she discovers dark secrets and unresolved wounds from the colonial era.

Jonny Lee Miller plays Oliver Connaught, a wealthy British aristocrat, and Sheldon Shepherd portrays Cudjoe East, a Jamaican native at the core of the inheritance dispute. Bel Powley joins the cast, and Storm Saulter will helm the series.

Sky’s Executive Director of Creative Scripted Content, Meghan Lyvers, lauded the concept,...

Sky has greenlit a new five-part series titled Inheritance from writer-actor Karla Crome and BAFTA-nominee Gugu Mbatha-Raw has been cast as one of the leads.

The limited “event series,” as Sky has described it, begins filming in the UK and Jamaica this month.

Jonny Lee Miller (Covenant), Sheldon Shepherd (Better Must Come), and Bel Powley (A Small Light) will also star with Storm Saulter directing. The series is produced by Snowed-In Productions in association with Sky Studios.

The series follows Claudia (Mbatha-Raw), an ambitious young bi-racial lawyer, who embarks on a journey to Jamaica to challenge an inheritance claim filed by an unknown local resident, Cudjoe East (Sheldon Shepherd), against Oliver Connaught (Lee-Miller), a wealthy white aristocrat. Her quest takes an unexpected turn when the contested estate reveals the ominous house that has haunted her nightmares: the Connaught family’s Jamaican plantation, Hope Hill. As Claudia and Oliver investigate,...

Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jonny Lee Miller, Sheldon Shepherd and Bel Powley will star in a new Sky Original thriller Inheritance.

From writer-actor Karla Crome (Am I Being Unreasonable, Carnival Row) and set in Bristol, U.K. and Jamaica, Inheritance is a five-part limited event series directed by Storm Saulter (Better Mus’ Come, Sprinter) and produced by Snowed-In Productions in association with Sky Studios.

Claudia (Mbatha-Raw), an ambitious young lawyer, embarks on a journey to Jamaica to challenge an inheritance claim filed by an unknown local resident, Cudjoe East (Shepherd), against Oliver Connaught (Lee Miller), a wealthy white aristocrat.

Her quest takes an unexpected turn when the contested estate reveals the ominous house that has haunted her nightmares: the Connaught family’s Jamaican plantation, Hope Hill. As Claudia and Oliver investigate, they uncover a chilling connection between historical horrors and present-day injustices. Inheritance is pegged as “an ambitious genre-bending series that boldly...

For me, Black History Month is best illustrated by my 92-year-old grandmother Ella Queen Johnson’s recall of our family stories. She shares these stories knowing that the wider world lacks a true and full recognition of the African American family legacy. For most of her long life, she has known that she should not look for depth and dimension in film and television as it relates to families like ours. This is the very reason why she told our history to us herself. My grandmother is a dynamic woman who is not formally trained as a teacher or a historian, but nonetheless, she is both. I am drawn to distributing films created by indie Black filmmakers through Array as a continuation of her calling. By supporting storytellers in the telling of their truths, I am celebrating a great legacy and making my grandmother proud.

I was a young girl...

Exclusive: Issa Rae and Deniese Davis’ ColorCreative Management is expanding its team, re-upping manager Ashley Calloway and adding former Rise Management’s Jordan Moncada as a talent and literary manager to the growing entertainment firm. The re-up and staff addition were announced Monday by Talitha Watkins, President & Head of ColorCreative.

Prior to joining ColorCreative Management, Calloway was an Account Manager at Studio71 where she executed high value brand campaigns for digital and traditional talent; brands included Disney, Amazon, Fox and more. Calloway also spent 3 ½ years working at Creative Artists Agency for high level agents in TV Unscripted, TV Scripted Packaging and Talent.

As a talent and literary manager at ColorCreative, Moncada is focused on representing multi-hyphenates that tell authentic stories and are passionate about making a larger impact on the world outside of the entertainment industry. She comes to ColorCreative after five years at Rise Management, where she was promoted...

Jada Pinkett Smith will star in “Redd Zone,” an upcoming drama that will be released by Netflix and produced by Westbrook Studios.

The film is based on the true story of Tia Magee (played by Pinkett Smith), a single mother who helps her sons and their high school football teammates, “The Bros,” heal after the murder of their best friend, Dominic Redd. One by one, the boys start moving into her house, and soon, 17 of “The Bros” are living under her roof. Eventually, all of them go to college, and four make it to the NFL. Magee’s son, Brandon Magee, became a linebacker for the Cleveland Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and was later drafted by the Boston Red Sox to play outfield.

The film will be dedicated to Redd’s memory.

Pinkett Smith, Miguel Melendez and Jon Mone, Westbrook Studios co-president and head of motion pictures, will produce...

A Jamaican athlete’s career is jeopardised by problems off the track in this heartwarming tale of ambition and family ties

Here’s a heartfelt sports drama from Jamaica made in the traditional style, about a teenage athlete who dreams of using his blistering talent to give his family a better life. Does the kid have sufficient grit to make it to the finish line?

Sprinter is a movie that leaves virtually no sporting cliche unbothered, yet it’s rooted in a naturalistic, emotional family drama reflecting the specific pleasures and perils of life in Jamaica. Storm Saulter directs with energy and style, with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith as executive producers.

Costa Rica 3–5 September 2019The new meeting point of the Audiovisual Industry in Central America and the Caribbean is set for Costa Rica September 3–5, 2019http://www.maucc.netJose Castro of the Costa Rica Film CommissionWe have made an important alliance between the Film Commission of Costa Rica and the organizers of the Expo Andina Link Costa Rica (Latin American meeting of cable and television), to create this new space with the mission of facilitating business and exchange between suppliers in Central America and the Caribbean and buyers of international audiovisual content.This initiative seeks not only to create a market space, but also a space for co-production between the countries of our region.

Central America and the Caribbean are introducing film funds in their countries and awaiting government approval.

Producers of audiovisual content who want to offer their portfolio of contents and projects, must register at www.maucc.net before August 4th.

This is the latest installment of “Breaking Black,” a weekly column focused on emerging black talent.

Jamaica is a long-favored foreign location for film, TV, and commercial production, from 1962’s “Dr. No” to the upcoming “Bond 25.” However, Negril, Jamaica native Storm Saulter is on a mission to bring his home’s complex social and cultural dynamics to the masses. His feature debut, “Better Mus’ Come (2010), was hailed as a landmark in Caribbean filmmaking, and his latest, “Sprinter,” which boasts Will and Jada Pinkett Smith as executive producers, marks a rare instance of a film by a Jamaican filmmaker, telling a Jamaican story, receiving a theatrical release in the Us.

“‘Sprinter’ is definitely breaking new ground with this release,” Saulter said. “Not that there hasn’t been great cinema to come out of Jamaica before, starting with of course ‘The Harder They Come,’ which is a brilliant work of independent cinema.

The day might be near when it will be news if an upcoming TV series doesn’t have a podcast to go along with it. For now, add Nat Geo’s “The Hot Zone” to the growing list of series enlisting some audio companionship. The story, which tells of Lt. Col. Nancy Jaax’s (Julianna Margulies) efforts to contain the Ebola virus after its first appearance on American soil, also will be addressed in “American Epidemics,” a Wondery audio series produced in conjunction with the TV show.

Lindsay Graham, the podcast host behind “American History Tellers” and the presidential-themed fiction series “Terms” and “1865,” will head up this new series, which will span three episodes. The second episode of “American Epidemics” will focus on the production of “The Hot Zone,” featuring interviews with Margulies and showrunners Kelly Sounders and Brian Peterson.

“American Epidemics” premieres May 10, with new episodes debuting every Friday.

Writer-director Storm Saulter’s “Sprinter” jogs along a predictable path, but makes a mad dash straight for the audience’s gut right before the finish line. While the narrative about a Rastafarian runner’s star on the rise blessedly doesn’t utilize emotionally manipulative devices or contrivance to make its sentiments heard, it generically adheres to the sports movie playbook. The hero’s meteoric ascent, fall from grace, and inevitable comeback is a formula that’s been done before. However, setting it against the backdrop of real social issues like immigration and the lack of local economic opportunity enhances the immediacy. It’s heartfelt in its delivery, but not a totally unique offering.

Akeem Sharp (Dale Elliot) was dealt a major blow early on when his mother Donna (Lorraine Toussaint) left Jamaica to find work in the United States to help support their family. Her stay was only supposed to last two years,...

At the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, Ava DuVernay launched a tiny distribution company. Nine years later, it’s part of a multimedia empire contained in a sprawling Los Angeles compound. The gated property in Echo Park, which includes two buildings separated by a courtyard, is a physical manifestation of DuVernay’s own rising stardom. It contains distribution, arts, and advocacy collective Array, post-production facilities (where DuVernay’s longtime editor Spencer Averick cuts DuVernay’s film and TV projects), and the “Queen Sugar” writers’ room.

It’s an impressive achievement, but the next step in the compound’s buildout is a state-of-the-art, 50-seat theater that will screen the half-dozen Array titles it plans to release in 2019 and work by local artists, and will be made available for rental. Located west of downtown Los Angeles — a part of the city that doesn’t house many media moguls — it’s also the area’s only independent theater.

"They're calling this young man the Rasta Rocket!" FilmRise has debuted the official trailer for an indie sports drama titled Sprinter, from Jamaican director Storm Saulter (Better Mus' Come). This premiered at the American Black Film Festival and is getting a VOD this spring, for who those who want to check it out. Sprinter is about a talented Rastafarian teenager in Philadelphia who hopes to qualify for the national youth track team for the World Youth Championships. Newcomer Dale Elliott stars as Akeem Sharp, who is set to be Jamaica's next big track-and-field sensation. Real-life Jamaican track sensation Usain Bolt makes an appearance as well, of course. The film also stars Lorrain Toussaint, Kadeem Wilson, Dennis Titus, Shantol Jackson, Bryshere Y. Gray, and David Alan Grier. Featuring songs by Ne-yo and Jamaican dancehall performer Shenseea. Executive produced by Jada & Will Smith, and Richard Jefferson. See below. Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Storm Saulter's Sprinter,...

It’s a waiting game in Central America and the Caribbean where some countries have introduced film funds but their respective governments have lagged in approving them.

Others have reaped the benefits of their existing ones. Costa Rica, which has seen a dramatic uptick in production, seeks to bolster the Fauna Fund it introduced in 2015 with taxes on cinemas and streaming services that will further sustain the fund. The fiscal proposal is now pending an approval by Costa Rica’s legislative assembly.

“Although still young and modest, this fund has provided a dynamic impulse to the audiovisual sector,” said Ana Xóchitl Alarcón, director general of the Costa Rica Film Institute, who notes that the fund has backed up to 40 audiovisual projects, encompassing features, docus, TV series and animation, since its launch.

Jamaica has been waiting some two years for a film fund to be approved. Its trade and investment org...

The 12 successful applicants for the third Caribbean Film Mart, 22–23 September, during the trinidad+tobago film festival have been announced. The Caribbean Film Mart fosters relationships between T+T filmmakers and the international film industry, by stimulating and facilitating dialogue and sharing of expertise.Green Days By The River’s Producer Christian James and Director Michael Mooleedhar get some advice from ttff Festival Director and Founder, Bruce Paddington at Cfm 2015Director Maya Cozier at One on One Session at Cfm 2016

The selected filmmakers will meet one-on-one with international film professionals specializing in production and distribution. The Mart will include presentations on international appeal and viability of local films and funding including co-productions. Robert Maylor, producer of Sprinter, together with director Storm Saulter who workshopped his project at Cfm 2015 and which has recently been released to wide acclaim, will present a case study.

At the end of the second the filmmakers will ‘pitch...

As powerful Hurricane Irma continues to make its way through Florida, rescue efforts are underway.

Commander Mauricio Posada, the operations officer of the U.S. Coast Guard, says for the past 24 to 48 hours there have been multiple departments at the Opa-Locka Executive Airport ready to help.

“We have multiple crews actually stationed here that have experienced not only Irma but significant storms like Sandy and Hurricane Katrina,” Posada tells People Now. “Well-trained crews are ready to get back to work.”

“ primary mission today is conducting search and rescue,” he adds. “The second mission will be reconstituting the ports.”

Rescue crews...

The worst of Hurricane Irma has passed Florida, but officials still don’t know the full extent of the damage across the state. The system, which was downgraded to a tropical storm Monday morning, is being blamed from five deaths so far. More than 5.8 million are without power across the state.

Meanwhile, authorities are warning that it’s still not safe for evacuees to return home. Storm surge, debris and downed power lines still present a danger to large swaths of South Florida and the Gulf Coast.

Destruction in the Keys

Emergency Management Director Martin Senterfitt called the destruction in...

2017-08-29T12:01:04-07:00Kardashians Come to Houston's Rescue

Kim Kardashian and her family donated a hefty sum of money to charities that are helping out with flood relief in Houston. That much is cool. She also tweeted about her donation, including its specific dollar amount, which might not be so cool.

Via Bustle.

Hurricane Harvey has been devastating the Gulf Coast of Texas since Friday night, causing extreme damage to the city of Houston, which has been afflicted by over 30 inches of rain and ruinous flooding. The intense winds and drastic downpours have left many Hurricane Harvey victims displaced as parts of Southern Texas are left uninhabitable due to the flood. Perhaps the only positive outcome from this natural disaster is the way that people have been generously donating to help Houston's relief efforts. Several celebrities have been posting on social media about donations, including the Kardashians,...

Predicting few bills will be passed if Republicans do not end the “filibuster,” President Trump then began to perform his Friday morning Twitter bending, stretching, and “Fake News” punching exercises. Glaringly missing from this morning’s comprehensive Presidential Tweet Storm, however, was any reference to Hurricane Harvey which the National Hurricane Center said early this morning was “dangerously approaching the Texas Coast” and was expected to bring…...

The founder of the inaugural Third Horizon Caribbean Film Festival and his friend, director of programming, preview this week’s event.

Jeffers, a Barbados native, musician and former journalist who founded the festival and also serves as its artistic director, and London-based Trinidadian Ali, a veteran programmer who has worked at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival and Toronto, believe the time is right for Third Horizon and its particular focus.

The event runs from September 29-October 2 and opens with Guetty Felin’s Ayiti Mon Amour (pictured). All screenings will take place at the O Cinema in Wynwood, Miami.

What’s the idea behind Third Horizon?

Jason Jeffers (from a note previously sent to Ali): Third Horizon came about from this sense, as a kid, that I had of the stories of the Caribbean and Third World being regarded as supplementary to those of the First World. We were bit players in world affairs and in...

A 20-strong group of Jamaican film professionals is in town, while the festival’s industry centre is also hosting a Jamaica stand.

Renee Robinson, former industry programmer at Toronto International Film Festival, is back at the festival in her new role as film commissioner of Jamaica.

Jampro, Jamaica’s national investment and export agency, is spearheading a 20-strong delegation of Jamaican film professionals coming to Toronto. There is also a Jamaica stand at the industry centre in the Hyatt Regency for the first time.

Robinson said the size of this first Toronto delegation is notable. “It’s an indication that Jamaica is ready to be a global film player,” she told Screen. The delegation includes the filmmakers selected for the Propella! short film development initiative, plus other experts including Kamal Bankay of Creative Marketing Associates, Paul Bucknor of Firefly Films, Carleene Samuels of Creative Source Productions, Damien Baddy of Lookyah and Delano Forbes of Phase 3.

Nick Cannon’s Us-Jamaican...

Exclusive: Jamaican director’s new drama aimed to be ready by the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

Some of the most famous Jamaican sprinters - and the fastest men in the world - are to feature in Jamaican director Storm Saulter’s new dramatic feature Sprinter.

“With Sprinter, I want to do for running films what Raging Bull did for the boxing film,” Saulter has commented of the film, which producer Don Ranvaud (Central Station, City Of God) has been introducing to the market in Cannes.

Saulter, who grew up in the Jamaican countryside, has extensive experience as a photographer and cinematographer on a number of TV commercials for Jamaican sprinting legend Usain Bolt.

The writer-director intends to use “track and field as a vehicle to explore the experiences of a modern Caribbean family in all of its complexity”.

“This is about the pressure that kids in Jamaica have to become athletes and obviously sprinters,” commented Don Ranvaud...

On the heels of its successful, workmanlike theatrical run, Affrm's new multi-platform label Array Releasing has released Storm Saulter's acclaimed romantic drama Better Mus' Come, on Netflix's streaming VOD service, this week.The debut feature from writer/director Saulter, tells the tale of a collision of passion, politics and poverty, against a tumultuous 1970s Jamaica backdrop, as rival gangs enlisted by warring political factions, disrupt the democratic process.Better Mus Come stars Sheldon Shepherd, Nicole Grey, Ricardo Orgill, Everaldo Creary, and Roger Guenveur Smith. Affrm's first pick-up of 2013 counts, among its...

On the heels of its successful, workmanlike theatrical run, Affrm's new multi-platform label Array Releasing has announced that Storm Saulter's acclaimed romantic drama Better Mus' Come, will be released on Netflix's streaming VOD service, on November 11th.The debut feature from writer/director Saulter, tells the tale of a collision of passion, politics and poverty, against a tumultuous 1970s Jamaica backdrop, as rival gangs enlisted by warring political factions, disrupt the democratic process.Better Mus Come stars Sheldon Shepherd, Nicole Grey, Ricardo Orgill, Everaldo Creary, and Roger Guenveur Smith. Affrm's...

Taken by Storm

Part of the The Havana International Film Festival festival for me was taken up with Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival (t+tff) films from the Caribbean. I had had such a great time in Trinidad + Tobago but had missed many of the films. So in Havana I got to catch up and finally see Storm Saulter’s Better Mus Come which has been picked up by the new African Diaspora film distributor for U.S. Affrm (African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement). Beginning today, March 15, the African American Film Festival Releasing Movement will release their fifth film - Storm Saulter's award winning Better Mus' Come - in New York and Los Angeles.

Storm is Jamaican and took film courses at L.A. Film School, that large private film school on Sunset near Vine, across from the Arclight Theater, where many foreign students go and where many vets go seeking to learn filmmaking. Storm, however, had been making films since he was a kid using super 8mm and at the ripe old age of 27, he has since formed a collective in Jamaica called, the New Caribbean Cinema.

Please consider sharing this with anyone in your personal network and/or company who values the black cinematic image and independent filmmaking.

Better Mus' Come Official Synopsis:

The debut feature from writer/director Storm Saulter, Better Mus' Come is a stunning love story unfolding at a true time in history when rival Jamaican gangs disrupted the democratic process - and bloodshed was unleashed on the streets.

Better Mus' Come Theatrical Trailer:

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Thanks for your support of the March 15th theatrical release of Array's Better Mus' Come.

It’s Cuba! Where else would The Havana International Film Festival’s Opening and Closing Night take place except in The Karl Marx Theater? Opening with music by Cuba’s greatest salsa group, Los Van Van, the 34th edition is still headed by its founder and Fidel Castro’s teacher in Communism, Alfredo Guevara, who dedicated this edition to the new generation of filmmakers which represents the future of cinema. The 10 day festival showcased a broad range of new and not-so-new films from Cuba, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Peru and fellow Caribbean nations, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, Curacao and others whose cinema is being aided by their governments and whose youth is creating a new international cinema with the support of Europe and even, sometimes, Asia.

While this edition paid homage to the youth, also present and recalled were the members of the generations from the ‘60s like Aldo Francia, Chileans Miguel Littin, Patricio Guzman, Jorge Sanjines, Fernado Birri, Fernando Solano, Cacho Pallero, Santiago Alvarez, Glauber Roch, Carlos Diegues, Leon Hizsman, Juaquim Pedro, Tomas Guierrez Alea, Mario Handler, Walter Achugar and many others who in the years ‘67 and ‘68 were themselves inspired by such luminaries as Joris Ivens. Together they were the originators of the phenomenon El Cine de America Latina or New Latin American Cinema influenced mainly by Italian neorealism and other movements of social cinema. Its function was to go against U.S. models and to illuminate the troubled realities of Latin America in the hope of restoring cinema of the continent. Its key moment was the meeting of Latin American Cinema 1967 , which had its impetus in the Chilean Aldo Francia , the Cinema Club of Viña del Mar , the Cuban Alfredo Guevara, the Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Film (Icaic) and the Argentine Edgardo Pallero.

Illuminaries such as Annette Benning whose film The Kids are All Right was screening there and Hawk Koch, president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, wrote fan letters to Fidel and Raoul and then mixed and caught up with the top critics and journalists of Latin America and festival participants in the gardens of the Hotel Nacional. Miguel Litten and spouse, the parents of Chile’s Christina Littin, one of Chile’s current top producer/ distributors, were often seen there. Their presence reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book Clandestine in Chile about the time when Miguel disguised himself to reenter Pinochet’s Chile from whence he had been exiled. So many stories of exile and return mark the modern history of Latin America.

The first day of the Havana festival was devoted to Eictv, the international film school that Gabriel Garcia Marquez founded in 1986 with his Nobel Prize money on land donated by Cuba. Today it is headed by Rafael Rosal who in his own country, Guatemala, set up the first infrastructure for a film industry – a film school, a film festival and production facilities.

Eictv has a student body from everywhere in Latin America, Europe and even from North America. Last year as the emissary for Woodbury University in Burbank CA, I brought them their first agreement with a U.S. institution and exchanges between students and staff have already begun, bringing TV documentary filmmaker Rolando Almirante for a second time to teach documentaries.

Eictv’s event at the Festival de Cine Nuevo en Habana is Nuevas Miradas, 12 chosen projects whose producers and directors present themselves to the industry and compete for three awards.

Coincidently with the lateness of this blog which I wrote from the Palm Springs International Film Festival -- some of Eictv’s staff’s and students’ films were among Psff’s 22 Latino projects vying for the Cine Latino Prize being offered by Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara. This fact along shows a new unity of purpose among the Latino countries and their festivals (Cuba, Guadalajara and Palm Springs, which as part of the Coachella Valley, has the largest Latino population in the United States.) Among the 22 candidates for Psff’s Best Iberoamerican film were Clandestine Childhood (Argentina/ Brazil/Spain) by Benjamín Ávila, who was the coordinator of Fiction at Eictv and screenwriter Marcelo Muller also participated in Eictv; La Voz Dormida (España) of the emerging filmmaker Benito Zambrano, and 7 Boxes (Paraguay) co-directed by Juan Carlos Maneglia, a student in many of the workshops of Eictv. Eictv considers this exchange of ideas and talents as globally important.

The winners of Nuevas Miradas should be watched as one or several reach fruition. Last year The Visitor (Chile) won and has since raised the budget for a feature length film debut.

The projects, Un Viejo Traje, Moora Moora directed by Australian Rhiannon Stevens and produced by Chilean Esme Joffre, Tus padres volverán directed by Uruguayan Pablo Martínez and produced by Virginia Hinze, Cocodrilos tomando el sol, Cuerpos Celestes by Mexican director Lorena Padilla and producer Liliana Bravo, Revolución de las polleras by Bolivian director Sergio Estrada and producer Valeria Ponce received recognition and free software from Assimilate.

The documentary, Un Viejo Traje (aka The Old Suit), by Cuban director Damián Saínz (a student of Eictv) and producer Viana González received a $2,000 prize.

Fiction project, Cocodrilos tomando el sol, directed by Colombian Carlos Rojas and the Venezuelan producer Carolina Graterol, received a $1,000 prize and a course in directing at Eictv.

A film package for those interested in Cuban film programming

Ann Cross, a Scottish woman married to a Trinidadian is always in Havana. She programs the best selection of current Cuban features for U.K. distribution. This year she gave me this list of her favorites and many people concurred with her.

Y sin embargo (aka Nevertheless) by Rudy Mora also won the Beijing Film Festival prize which is surprising in that it is about school children challenging the school system, and challenging any systems in China (and perhaps in Cuba as well) is highly problematic. The child actors are exceptional. The type of burlesque comedy is typical of Cuba. Produced and Isa (international sales agent) is the Cuban government film group Icaic.

Irredemediablemente Juntos (aka Irredeemably Together) by Jorge Luis Sanchez Gonzalez is brave and challenging. Purportedly about classical music and Cuban music and the conflict between the two, it is really about race and the synthesis between black and white, Cuban and European Classical is reached in the story.

Cresciendo en la musica is about teaching music to children.

El sangre en la casa, en la escuela y en la calle (aka Blood in the House, in the School and in the Street) is a British-Cuban coproduction about Matanza, a town just outside of Havana where Cuban music roots are.

La piscine (aka The Swimming Pool) by Calvo Machado might not stand alone in the U.S. but would be good in a package.

Binchi by Eduardo Galano is about the 2 classes clashing in prison.

At the top of Ann’s list and on top of many others’ lists is Melaza.

What I saw and liked

It was also a time for me to catch up of Latin American cinema I have missed. My favorite was Chilean film Jueves a Domingo (aka from Thursday to Sunday) by Dominga Sotomayer. This road trip by a young couple and their 7 year old son and 11 year old daughter tells a story through the daughter’s eye of a loving family’s vacation and their father’s decision to move from Santiago to the countryside. We never know what he is getting away from (Pinochet?) but we see what is supposed to be a vacation transforms the family’s wholeness. The loving light touch of Sotomayer reminds me of Eric Rohmer’s four films of the seasons.

Lucie Malloy’s Una Noche was mobbed by the Cuban public wanting to see this film about two young defectors from Cuba; the police were called to break up the crowd and the overflow had a special screening set up. We hear that the young woman star who defected with her costar on the way to the Tribeca Film Festival and who landed up in Las Vegas is now in “exile mode” bewailing how she misses her family. La probrecita!! Yet another exile story. Had she waited a month, travel from Cuba would be legal. Una Noche is now here in Palm Springs as well, competitng for the Cine Latino Prize.

Other films I saw and liked

El Limpiador and Ombras were both without subtitles (as was Pablo Lorrain’s closing night film No) and so I could only watch a part of them. However I did see El Limpiador here in Palm Springs and was impressed with its simplicity and its authenticity and loving heart. A low tech take on a mysterious illness killing people in the Peruvian city of Lima, the film was simple, sometimes funny and in the end very satisfying.

A film which divided the audience neatly between men and women was the Brazilian feature Brecha Silencia (aka Breaching the Silence) about domestic violence from which 3 siblings barely escape. The subject of violence toward women was also the subject of a short which showed in every public screening. Called Ya No, this short Latin American backed PSA brings public awareness to the unacceptable violent behavior of men toward women often found in schools, in dating, and in homes.

Desde de Lucia playing in Palm Springs also takes on the subject of bullying, this time in a bourgeois Mexican school and centering on a teenage girl who has recently lost her mother.

Taken by Storm

The next segment of the festival was taken up with Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival (t+tff). Emilie Upszak, Artistic Director of t+tff, whom I had met in Havana last year through Icaic’s Luis Notario, and Bruce Paddington the founder and exec director of t+tff were in Havana with a delegation of filmmakers and their films. Since I had missed them all during the extraordinary experience I had at t+tff, I got to see Storm Saulter’s Better Mus Come which has been picked up by the new African Diaspora film distributor for U.S. Affrm (African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement).

Storm is Jamaican and took film courses at L.A. Film School, that large private film school on Sunset near Vine, across from the Arclight Theater, where many foreign students go and where many vets go seeking to learn filmmaking. Storm, however, had been making films since he was a kid using super 8mm and at the ripe old age of 27, he has since formed a collective in Jamaica called, the New Caribbean Cinema. His new fiction feature Better Mus Come screened at Trinidad + Tobago film festival and showed here in Havana as well. He will be announcing an international sales agent and a U.S. distributor very soon.

What fun and interesting days and evenings and nights I had with the t+tff folks.

We heard live music, I danced salsa with a Puerto Rican Actor/ Director who dances salsa and has a short in the festival.

Salsa in Havana seems to be losing steam. Reggaeton closes every dance event as the drunken, monotonous final act before going home. However in Jamaica it is transforming itself into Dancehall (what could be more sexual than that except for sex itself?). There is also Rumba, the traditional dance of Afro-Cubans. It is now taking new forms as the newest generation of Cuba takes the stage. Woodbury faculty, in Havana on a hosted tour with the Jose Marti Cultural Institute, led by my friend Cookie Fischer were invited to the top of the Lincoln Hotel on the night the world was to end (remember the Mayan calendar prediction?) and we danced the night away to the live music of Septeto Nacional a 70 year old group. Son was my dance of choice there. For those of you who want to see Cuba before the transition is over, now is the time. You can travel legally from L.A. and Miami, Mexico or anywhere else in the world with a general license. Take advantage of it Now as it is going to get more crowded with tourists. For us film folk, we get a privileged perch, so plan on next December taking in a week of films plus another week or two to see a country whose land and people are unique in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Newcomer Sky Nicole Grey, the star of Storm Saulter's Better Mus Come and Andrew Dosunmu's Restless City, spoke to S&A yesterday prior to the closing awards ceremony of the American Black Film Festival, in which her debut acting film Better Mus' was up for Best Director, Best Narrative and Best Actor. By the way, lead actor Sheldon Shepherd won the best actor award for his powerful performance as gang leader Ricky in the political drama. The young talented Grey is also a model and a singer. Who knew? She also is working on a script titled The 20's Girl, about a black girl in New York during the 1920's. Watch her interview below where she talks about...

Having a wealth of North American film industry experience, including longtime assistant to music video director Little X, director Storm Saulter was able to cull from it on his first feature film Better Mus Come which he also wrote.

With the exception of veteran actor Roger Guenveur Smith who plays the Prime Minister, the cast was all Jamaican and included newcomers Sheldon Shepherd, Nicole Sky Grey and Duane Pusey.

The story follows warring political factions in 1970′s Jamaica as they enlist the support of gangs to enforce their policies, and advance their political agenda. It begins in ’77 and ends the first couple days of ’78 during the Green Bay Massacre . An urban love story develops between suspected political agitator Ricky (Shepherd) and Kemala (Grey), a young girl he meets at his homecoming party after being incarcerated.

As a native of the country, Saulter not only wanted to create this film but...