Austin Fi­do

Aleem Mar­cus Valen­tine is used to be­ing seen. He is tall, with the face and physique of a mod­el. He is a mod­el, part-time, when he isn't work­ing at his cho­sen ca­reer as a chef. The mod­el­ling goes back to his teenage years, when his moth­er sent him for lessons in the hope he would be cured of his "gang­ster walk."

"I still have that kind of crawl, it's a rugged, kind of rough walk I have," says the 25-year-old, re­call­ing the events that brought him in­to the cast of The Re­sort, a short film screen­ing at the T&T Film Fes­ti­val this month.

The walk has be­come his call­ing card for his mod­el­ling work. And in gen­er­al. He is used to hear­ing he has been spot­ted around town: "You can't miss that walk," his friends say.

In ear­ly 2014, di­rec­tor Shadae Lamar Smith was in To­ba­go cast­ing for a movie project, his the­sis project for his mas­ter's in film di­rect­ing and pro­duc­tion from UCLA (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia).

He had help: lo­cal pro­duc­ers Dave El­liott and Ryan Khan; the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly sup­port­ed the project, even spon­sor­ing a cast­ing call on the ra­dio.

"Blessed" is Smith's de­scrip­tion of the THA's as­sis­tance; "per­fect part­ner­ing," says pro­duc­er Mar­juan Canady, who hopes The Re­sort will al­so serve as a pos­i­tive ex­am­ple for oth­er film­mak­ers think­ing of work­ing in T&T.

"We cast most every­one from that call," says Smith of the THA cast­ing call. But there was no male lead un­til the day he and pro­duc­er El­liott were dri­ving through Scar­bor­ough. Smith spot­ted some­one on the street–just a pedes­tri­an, just some­one walk­ing. Just Aleem Mar­cus Valen­tine.

"I'm look­ing at Mar­cus–he looks like he could be the lead in my film," re­calls Smith, who backed his ex­pe­ri­ence as a di­rec­tor to help even a novice de­liv­er the per­for­mance re­quired for the film.

El­liott called out to Valen­tine from road: "Hey, you need a ride?"

The men knew each oth­er. El­liott had pre­vi­ous­ly tried to per­suade Valen­tine to join a movie project, but Valen­tine de­clined. He was build­ing his ca­reer in the culi­nary arts. What oth­er time he had was spent at the gym, the oc­ca­sion­al mod­el­ling gig, or with his PlaySta­tion. He had no time for movies. Still, this was not an­oth­er movie role, this was just a lift. He hopped in­to El­liott's car.

"Ever done a film?" asked Smith as soon as Valen­tine was set­tled.

The Re­sort ad­dress­es a sub­ject not of­ten dis­cussed in po­lite so­ci­ety: sex tourism, and in par­tic­u­lar, women trav­el­ling to the Caribbean to seek the ro­man­tic at­ten­tion of lo­cal men.

Rent-a-dread, ras­tatutes, beach boys: what dis­cus­sion of the mat­ter there is of­ten takes place un­der friv­o­lous or di­min­ish­ing la­bels. Nonethe­less, it is a not in­signif­i­cant part of the in­for­mal side of the Caribbean's econ­o­my. The 2006 doc­u­men­tary Rent a Ras­ta es­ti­mat­ed 80,000 vis­i­tors to Ja­maica be­come wit­ting or un­wit­ting clients of the is­land's sex tourism trade every year.

There are sev­er­al strands to the dis­cus­sion of the Caribbean's beach boy phe­nom­e­non: pub­lic health; the ques­tion of whether vis­i­tors, lo­cals, or both are be­ing ex­ploit­ed; even the ques­tion of whether a short-term re­la­tion­ship forged on the beach is pros­ti­tu­tion at all.

The typ­i­cal arrange­ment is usu­al­ly de­scribed as a young, lo­cal man con­nect­ing with an old­er, for­eign woman. There is not nec­es­sar­i­ly any for­mal trans­ac­tion, but the one par­ty (the tourist) in­vari­ably bears the cost of the re­la­tion­ship–meals, drinks, per­haps clothes, some­times even rent or a stipend. Is that pros­ti­tu­tion or dat­ing?

It is not a ques­tion The Re­sort seeks to an­swer. "I am not in­ter­est­ed in judg­ing or draw­ing con­clu­sions," says Smith. His in­ter­est in the sub­ject was piqued by a more per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence. No, not that type of ex­pe­ri­ence.

Shadae Lamar Smith is Ja­maican, and he is Amer­i­can. Born and raised in Flori­da, his Caribbean her­itage does not nec­es­sar­i­ly re­veal it­self un­less Smith choos­es to make it known.

"I find when I tell peo­ple I am Ja­maican, some­thing sexy pops in­to their heads," he says.

"It seems like peo­ple re­act to me dif­fer­ent­ly than if I said I was from Jack­sonville or South Africa."

Smith is in­ter­est­ed in the idea that Caribbean iden­ti­ty has been sex­u­alised and ex­oti­cised by decades of ag­gres­sive sun-and-fun mar­ket­ing. This has cre­at­ed a per­va­sive im­age of the Caribbean and its cul­tures in the minds of those be­ing en­cour­aged to vis­it: "All of a sud­den, peo­ple talk about sex for some rea­son."

Those ob­ser­va­tions di­rect­ed Smith to the aca­d­e­m­ic dis­cus­sion of Caribbean iden­ti­ty, and sub­se­quent­ly to­ward the lit­er­a­ture on the re­gion's sex tourism trade. On beach­es in Ja­maica and To­ba­go, with new aware­ness he watched re­la­tion­ships form. The Re­sort ex­am­ines those re­la­tion­ships from the per­spec­tive of the man sell­ing him­self to a for­eign vis­i­tor. And it jux­ta­pos­es the ex­pe­ri­ence with oth­er tourism-de­pen­dent oc­cu­pa­tions: house­keep­ing and the sale of wa­ter­sports or tour pack­ages on the beach.

Per­haps the var­ied nar­ra­tive (the sto­ry is told in three vi­gnettes) ex­plains why, at first read­ing, Valen­tine thought of his role as "a salt­fish. I'm a salt­fish man: every­body likes me." On set, in front of the cam­eras, tasked with bring­ing the words of the script to life, he re­alised the most mem­o­rable as­pect of his char­ac­ter might not be his gen­er­al con­vivi­al­i­ty: "I thought: Woah, this is a man will­ing to sell love."

More in­fo:

The Re­sort's in­ter­na­tion­al pre­miere takes place Sep­tem­ber 24, at 9 pm, at Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain, and the film screens again on the fol­low­ing dates:

�2 Sept 25, 8 pm, Movi­eTowne, To­ba­go

�2 Sept 28, 3 pm, Movi­eTowne, To­ba­go

�2 Sept 29, 6 pm, Movi­eTowne, POS