Ja­nine Mendes-Fran­co

In the 1970s two im­por­tant, in­dige­nous Caribbean films were made: Ja­maica's icon­ic The Hard­er They Come, star­ring Jim­my Cliff, which still takes some mea­sure of cred­it for in­tro­duc­ing reg­gae mu­sic to the world, and Bim, which ex­plores race, pol­i­tics and work­ing-class chal­lenges in colo­nial Trinidad.

If you've nev­er heard of Bim, far less seen it, that's all about to change, thanks to the pow­er of so­cial me­dia. Pat Ganase has start­ed a Face­book page called Bim, the movie–the mod­ern-day equiv­a­lent of the Hol­ly­wood fan club–in an at­tempt to ig­nite on­line dis­cus­sion about the film and the is­sues it deals with.

"I de­cid­ed it was time for the first all-Trinidad film to have a Face­book fan page," Ganase says. "It was the first film that didn't just use our en­vi­ron­ment as a lo­ca­tion and our peo­ple as ex­ot­ic na­tives or ex­tras. It is a film with a sto­ry that is au­then­tic...and ours."

Raoul Pan­tin col­lab­o­rat­ed on the script. The ac­tors were all lo­cal. So was the ma­jor­i­ty of the film crew. The ear­ly fu­sion sound­track was com­posed by the late An­dre Tanker and per­formed by some of the coun­try's most out­stand­ing mu­si­cians, in­clud­ing Mun­gal Patasar. But, most im­por­tant­ly, it was a Trinida­di­an sto­ry. Ganase, friends with Suzanne Robert­son (who co-pro­duced the film with her late hus­band Hugh), says that the cou­ple saw a bright fu­ture for the film in­dus­try in T&T, even back then.

"The first Trinida­di­an film com­pa­ny was SHARC," she ex­plains, "named for Suzanne, Hugh and their chil­dren (An­to­nio and An­na) Robert­son. Bim–and SHARC–prob­a­bly failed then, for the same rea­sons that film, as a vi­able in­dus­try, is not suc­ceed­ing to­day. There is a fail­ure to ap­pre­ci­ate it as a pro­duc­tive in­dus­try that can em­ploy many, many peo­ple and bring re­turns on in­vest­ment through dis­tri­b­u­tion."

There is a sense of d�j� vu.

"The chal­lenges for young film­mak­ers to­day are the same," Ganase says. "Fund­ing, in­sti­tu­tion­al sup­port, dis­tri­b­u­tion and mar­ket­ing. The film in­dus­try is not a soli­tary art, which is why it is an 'In­dus­try' with a cap­i­tal I."

But the sense of fa­mil­iar­i­ty does not stop there; it ex­tends it­self to so­ci­etal chal­lenges as well. While the film marked a par­tic­u­lar time in our his­to­ry, ad­dress­ing our at­ti­tudes to­wards racial iden­ti­ty, Ganase thinks that its lessons are still rel­e­vant.

"Maybe it can tell us some­thing about crime in our so­ci­ety," she of­fers. "It cer­tain­ly has some­thing to say about young men who grow them­selves up, with­out fa­ther or fam­i­ly."

The plot fol­lows the main char­ac­ter Bhim (ini­tial­ly pro­nounced Beem) Singh, whose fa­ther, a union leader for the sug­ar work­ers, is killed on the day of his sis­ter's wed­ding. Bhim leaves the on­ly life he knows in rur­al Trinidad to live with his aunt and her ne'er-do-well hus­band in Port-of-Spain. He is an out­cast from the get-go, and soon gets drawn in­to a life of pet­ty crime, work­ing for an un­der­world type who re-chris­tens him Bim.

Up­on its re­lease, the film was not panned by crit­ics, but it didn't quite get rave re­views ei­ther. The New York Times cri­tique in 1974, for in­stance, opened by say­ing, "By no con­ven­tion­al stan­dards is 'Bim' very good, but it's still vast­ly more in­ter­est­ing than lots of oth­er movies you're like­ly to stum­ble on."

"In­ter­est­ing" may have been an un­der­state­ment; it cer­tain­ly struck a note with lo­cal au­di­ences, pre­sum­ably even be­fore any­one had even seen it. T&T's Cen­sors Board banned it.A month af­ter le­gal ac­tion was tak­en against the Cen­sors Board, the film was fi­nal­ly screened–un­cut–at the land­mark Roxy cin­e­ma in St James.

"The lan­guage is harsh; it had plen­ty cuss­words," Ganase re­calls, "but not un­war­rant­ed. Peo­ple who have seen the film are the ones who per­ceive it as sem­i­nal and im­por­tant. There is a ring of truth in Bim the movie."

The film cer­tain­ly ap­pears to have a time­less qual­i­ty to it. Ganase at­tests that "view­ers of all ages and in every decade re­spond [to the film] the same way...as if it is some­thing that they were de­prived of."It's not that I want peo­ple to know the film," she says.

"It is that peo­ple have a hunger for it." Ganase says the Bim Face­book page "will point us in a di­rec­tion that comes from the col­lec­tive."

One idea that came out of user com­ments, for in­stance, was the sug­ges­tion by artist Christo­pher Co­zi­er to work to­wards hav­ing Bim list­ed in Mar­tin Scors­ese's World Cin­e­ma Project, which re­stores and dis­trib­utes films from coun­tries that are un­der­rep­re­sent­ed in glob­al film cul­ture.

"It is a worth­while idea that might be an av­enue for new dis­tri­b­u­tion," Ganase ex­plains. "There will be a show­ing in the fu­ture. But I think that will hap­pen when the time is right."

More in­fo: Vis­it the Face­book page for Bim the Movie.

COR­REC­TION (Feb 9, 2014): The by­line of this ar­ti­cle orig­i­nal­ly cred­it­ed the wrong au­thor, be­cause of an edit­ing er­ror. The ar­ti­cle was writ­ten by Ja­nine Mendes-Fran­co, not Ja­nine Charles-Far­ray.