Ja­nine Charles-Far­ray

In an in­ter­view last week­end, Sun­day Arts caught up with film­mak­er Ryan Khan af­ter learn­ing that he had been ac­cept­ed to the 2013 Berli­nale Tal­ent Cam­pus, which will take place from Feb­ru­ary 9-14 in Ger­many. What op­por­tu­ni­ty could pos­si­bly be worth miss­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val? "The Berli­nale Tal­ent Cam­pus is a cre­ative acad­e­my and net­work­ing plat­form for 300 up-and-com­ing film­mak­ers from all over the world," says the tal­ent in­cu­ba­tor's Web site.

"Emerg­ing film­mak­ers will ex­change thoughts with es­tab­lished in­dus­try ex­perts on the in­tri­ca­cies of en­ter­tain­ment, how to push sto­ry­telling to un­ex­pect­ed lev­els and how to reach the heart of the au­di­ence. The Berli­nale Tal­ent Cam­pus brings emerg­ing tal­ent and sea­soned film pro­fes­sion­als to­geth­er and of­fers them a plat­form to re­fresh their views, dis­cov­er new hori­zons, find fel­low film­mak­ing col­lab­o­ra­tors and dis­cuss new trends and de­vel­op­ments in con­tem­po­rary cin­e­ma and me­dia."

Khan sees his ac­cep­tance to the Berli­nale Tal­ent Cam­pus as the crown­ing achieve­ment of what he has de­scribed as a win­ning streak over the last year. His 2012 Al­ice In­Won­der­land-themed mu­sic video Stress Away for Kes the Band was ac­cept­ed in the BBC Mu­sic Video Fes­ti­val; and Khan won a World­view/Tribeca Film In­sti­tute Pitch Award at the 2012 Trinidad + To­ba­go Film Fes­ti­val for his first fea­ture film project Crabs in a Bar­rel.

"I've ap­plied for many things through­out my ca­reer and have re­ceived the stan­dard is­sue 'Un­for­tu­nate­ly you haven't been ac­cept­ed...' re­sponse, with no spe­cif­ic ex­pla­na­tion why, but I've kept at it and now re­jec­tion is no longer an ob­sta­cle for me," Khan said. "Now I have the mind­set to adapt and work past that."In the world of film­mak­ing the prob­a­bil­i­ty of re­jec­tion is high and the Berli­nale Tal­ent Cam­pus is no dif­fer­ent. An of­fi­cial press re­lease on the Berli­nale blog states that 4,443 ap­pli­ca­tions were re­ceived from 137 coun­tries, in­clud­ing first-time ap­pli­cants from French Guiana and St Lu­cia.

Khan is the first ap­pli­cant from Trinidad and To­ba­go in the his­to­ry of the pro­gramme.The pro­gramme in­cludes an ex­pert pan­el of well-known film in­dus­try prac­ti­tion­ers who will host talk ses­sions for di­rec­tors, ac­tors, pro­duc­ers and cin­e­matog­ra­phers. The Web site for the Berli­nale Tal­ent Cam­pus states that it has wel­comed a di­verse ar­ray of in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­claimed ex­perts over the years as well as film pro­fes­sion­als will­ing to share their knowl­edge and give in­sight in­to their life and work. The the­mat­ic fo­cus for the 2013 edi­tion is Some Like It Hot–Film­mak­ers as En­ter­tain­ers. Dur­ing the Berli­nale Tal­ent Cam­pus pro­gramme, Khan in­tends to fo­cus on film di­rect­ing.

A sense of cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty and filmic vi­sion seems to be one of the dri­ving forces be­hind Khan's work. In ad­di­tion to his bi­og­ra­phy and the sub­mis­sion of two past short films and oth­er pieces from his past work, Khan was re­quired to send to Berli­nale a one-lin­er to de­scribe him­self. He sub­mit­ted the fol­low­ing: "I am a Trin­bag­on­ian film­mak­er. My films are salt­wa­ter-soaked, sun-baked vi­sions of small-is­land life that ex­plore what it means to live in a pseu­do par­adise."Khan re­ceived a lot of sup­port on this ven­ture from oth­er film­mak­ers who pro­vid­ed rec­om­men­da­tions, friends who en­cour­aged him, and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Co (TTFC) which will give him fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to go to Ger­many.

Khan is hop­ing to be able to host a talk ses­sion with fel­low T&T film­mak­ers about his ex­pe­ri­ence at the tal­ent cam­pus in con­junc­tion with the TTFC on his re­turn to Trinidad.

"Shar­ing this ex­pe­ri­ence with the lo­cal in­dus­try was one of the rea­sons why I want­ed to at­tend the tal­ent cam­pus. I'm ex­cit­ed to im­part what I've learnt."

About Ryan Khan

Ryan Khan, 31, grew up in San Fer­nan­do be­fore mov­ing to Port-of-Spain at age 14. He at­tend­ed Fa­ti­ma Col­lege and then RBTT Roytec for a diplo­ma pro­gramme. Af­ter grad­u­at­ing, he worked over the next three years in var­i­ous jobs with com­put­ers, sell­ing cars and al­so as a serv­er at TGI Fri­days. The film bug bit him in 2004 when he worked for the au­dio-vi­su­al pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny Big Fish in a Blue Bot­tle. From there he be­gan work­ing on mu­sic videos and mak­ing his own films which in­clude mu­sic videos such as Or­ange Sky's Alone, Tripped and Falling's In tears and Bad End­ings and more re­cent­ly, Stress Away and Take Me Away for Kes the Band. His short films in­clude Min­utes to Mid­night and A Mid­night Af­fair. His up­com­ing fea­ture-length film Crabs in a Bar­rel is in pre-pro­duc­tion, due to be re­leased in 2014.