Dr. Glenville Ash­by

The ac­com­plish­ments of the re­gion's top notch artists and de­sign­ers are un­mis­tak­able, unique. Yet, there is a feel­ing that its reser­voir of tal­ents is yet to be ful­ly tapped. And right­ly so. With cre­ative writ­ers, sculp­tors, painters and film di­rec­tors, the ques­tion, "Why hasn't the re­gion's tal­ents gone glob­al?" screams for a re­sponse. Di­rec­tor of CaribBe­ing, Shel­ley Wor­rell, at­trib­ut­es this to the lack of co­he­sive­ness in the in­dus­try. "It's so frag­ment­ed," she said, re­fer­ring in par­tic­u­lar to the film in­dus­try in the Caribbean. "So many peo­ple are do­ing dif­fer­ent things, and are so self ab­sorbed. That's why part­ner­ships are so im­por­tant, where key peo­ple can be brought to the ta­ble to for­mu­late a strat­e­gy to in­ter­na­tion­alise the in­dus­try, from a busi­ness and artis­tic per­spec­tive."

Shel­ley un­der­stands the im­por­tance of "in­ter­na­tion­al­i­sa­tion," and with strong Trin­bag­on­ian roots has al­ready en­joyed a suc­cess­ful run as or­gan­is­er of the first Caribbean film fes­ti­val in New York in 2010.

"Last year's event was par­tic­u­lar­ly in­struc­tive and at the same time emo­tion­al. We fea­tured the works of Hait­ian artists who re­al­ly ben­e­fit­ed from the plat­form that CaribBe­ing of­fered." In­deed, the film On Lan­men Ka Lave Lot (Unit­ed We Stand) by Jan­Luk Stanis­las has gone on to win in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion. It was lat­er fea­tured at St Bart's Film fes­ti­val and was aired on tele­vi­sion in North Amer­i­ca. This year's film fes­ti­val, sched­uled from Oc­to­ber 28 to No­vem­ber 18, rais­es the bar, ex­plor­ing the con­tem­po­rary films of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Ja­maica, the French West In­dies and the East­ern Caribbean bloc. Con­comi­tant­ly, it will fea­ture the re­gion's clas­sic films. "It's a homage and ap­pre­ci­a­tion for our el­ders who opened the door," Shel­ley re­marked.

Vin­tage movies such as Hard­er They Come and its mod­ern se­quel Bet­ter Must Come, the sus­pense thriller 3 Line by Tri­ni-born Christo­pher An­tho­ny, and the in­no­v­a­tive work of Caribbean Graf­fi­ti writ­ers, and An­i­mae Caribe (of Trinidad) will be screened. But Shel­ley and CaribBe­ing are still wel­com­ing sub­mis­sions, "build­ing con­tent," she said. The savvy and in­sight­ful di­rec­tor is al­so seek­ing part­ner­ships and spon­sors, and an­tic­i­pates some kind of col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Com­pa­ny.

"You have strength in num­bers and in a com­mon goal," she stat­ed, de­ter­mined not to be­come a vic­tim of the "frag­men­ta­tion and in­di­vid­u­al­ism that has plagued the in­dus­try." The four-week fes­ti­val at the Mo­ca­da (Mu­se­um) and Maysles (The­atre), in Brook­lyn and leg­endary Harlem, re­spec­tive­ly, is ex­pect­ed to at­tract Caribbean tal­ents in film, dance, mu­sic and art. It will al­so in­clude pan­el dis­cus­sions geared to­ward artists and com­mu­ni­ty based events. "Last year we did so much on Haiti, as the wounds of the earth­quake were still fresh and very open. The in­ter­ac­tion we had at the fes­ti­val al­so helped so many to bet­ter chan­nel their as­sis­tance," Shelly com­ment­ed.

This year, peren­ni­al is­sues such as gen­der, race and class are ex­pect­ed to part of the the­mat­ic for­mat.

"These are ar­eas that con­tin­ue to im­pact our com­mu­ni­ties and we would be re­miss if they are just ig­nored," Shelly added. Shel­ley's vi­sion is a bold one with vast fis­cal, cul­tur­al, so­cial, and even po­lit­i­cal im­pli­ca­tions. She has in­ge­nious­ly de­vel­oped a plat­form that con­nects, de­vel­ops and pro­motes the artistry of the Caribbean and the Di­as­po­ra. "There is a need for peo­ple to see them­selves re­flect­ed and an op­por­tu­ni­ty here to in­tro­duce our cul­ture to new au­di­ences," she ar­tic­u­lat­ed. But she is aware that the fruition of Caribbean tal­ent world­wide is de­pen­dent on a well-heeled and man­aged or­gan­i­sa­tion. This, the epit­o­me of her artis­tic ac­com­plish­ment must re­main proac­tive. She un­der­stands what's at stake in this high­ly com­pet­i­tive busi­ness. She fash­ions CaribBe­ing along the lines of the renowned Tribeca Film Fes­ti­val, which an­nu­al­ly gen­er­ates an in­ter­na­tion­al buzz, trans­lat­ing in­to huge prof­its. "The Tribeca Fes­ti­val has not lost its soul," Shel­ley ar­gued. "It has re­mained com­mu­ni­ty based while mon­etis­ing and lever­ag­ing its col­lec­tive re­sources," she end­ed.