?It is a very big deal that Ho­race Wil­son's film, Hap­pySAD, an en­sem­ble dra­mat­ic sto­ry of moth­er/daugh­ter aban­don­ment and ul­ti­mate­ly re­demp­tion, has been filmed on lo­ca­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. By mak­ing movies on our shores, film­mak­ers gift our in­dige­nous film in­dus­try with skill de­vel­op­ment, em­ploy­ment and aid the econ­o­my of our coun­try. That is why the Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Com­pa­ny (TTFC) was de­light­ed to award Wil­son a 15 per cent re­bate as part of their in­cen­tive pro­gramme.

And what a film! Hap­pySAD, ac­cord­ing to Wil­son, "...has themes that are very uni­ver­sal; strug­gle, com­pro­mise, re­demp­tion with­in a fam­i­ly... "It de­buted at the Pan African Film fes­ti­val which is like the biggest fes­ti­val for films with­in the African Di­as­po­ra. They had over 2,500 en­tries from over 42 coun­tries and they chose 140 en­tries of which ours was one, and then the top ten, and we were among the ten and they say we came sec­ond and some said it was the best film at the fes­ti­val." So what made the in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ence sit up and pay at­ten­tion to what Wil­son play­ful­ly calls an "ul­tra low bud­get" film?

A good script

He ex­plains, "I've been in the Cal­i­for­nia movie in­dus­try for 19 years and every­body recog­nis­es you have to have a good script. Al­though some think you just need a big star and a big bud­get, but then again you get US$100 mil­lion films that flop and in­vestors lose big bucks. "Lots of mon­ey is not what is need­ed. Just re­cent­ly at Cannes a film de­buted that was made for just US$70. To do an in­de­pen­dent film it has to be the sto­ry. That is where it has to start." Wil­son knows what he is talk­ing about. He is a top-notch scriptwriter and grad­u­ate of the pres­ti­gious Amer­i­can Film In­sti­tute in Los An­ge­les where lu­mi­nar­ies like Charl­ton He­s­ton and Steven Spiel­berg served on the board of di­rec­tors. He is al­so the writer of two ground­break­ing lo­cal se­ries in Trinidad and To­ba­go, No Bound­aries and Turn of The Tide. Re­mem­ber be­ing glued to the tele­vi­sion screen in the 1980s be­cause of the pow­er of a good sto­ry? Writ­ers who be­come film pro­duc­ers ap­proach film­mak­ing with a more nur­tur­ing ap­proach.

Af­ter all, it is their char­ac­ters, their "ba­bies" be­ing birthed. This tends to at­tract ded­i­cat­ed mid­wives at a mod­er­ate price.

Wil­son re­veals: "I got a very ca­pa­ble Em­my-nom­i­nat­ed di­rec­tor, a woman called Di­anah Wyn­ter, hold­er of a Mas­ters in Di­rec­tion from AFI, our al­ma mater. She pre­vi­ous­ly did episodes of Sis­ter Sis­ter, Moehsa, Show­time's Soul Food, The Park­ers, as well as movies-for-tele­vi­sion like In­ti­mate Be­tray­al (BET) and Dad­dy's Girl. We got an ac­tor named Bill Cobbs, he was in Night at The Mu­se­um and The Body­guard. "I think it was quite an amaz­ing pool of lo­cal tal­ent. There was a girl called An­gel Ross, it was her first time and she did a fan­tas­tic job of it. Our di­rec­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy was John Sim­mons and he has shot over 30 films and the on­ly rea­son he agreed to shoot this film was that he liked the script. His agent thought he was crazy and told him, 'Why are you go­ing to go down to the Caribbean to shoot this film when you can just stay right here in LA and work two days on a com­mer­cial and make loads more mon­ey?'"

Shot in 15 days

The same ap­plies to the crew, Wil­son shares, "The whole movie was shot in 15 days and I re­al­ly have to com­mend the crew for their hard work. I would re­al­ly like to work with those ac­tors again and those crew again. I was pleased with what we were able to achieve with a very small bud­get." Wil­son knows about the ups and downs of com­pet­ing with writ­ers in Hol­ly­wood. "I ac­tu­al­ly wrote and pro­duced a film Sin­ners Need Com­pa­ny which aired on Life­time and in sev­er­al coun­tries in Eu­rope. It starred Gail O'Grady (star of NYPD Blue and Amer­i­can Dreams) and Jen­nifer Mor­ri­son, the fe­male lead in the hit se­ries House. It was edit­ed by Richard Halsey who won an Acad­e­my Award for edit­ing Rocky." Right now, Wil­son wants to see more in­depth un­der­stand­ing of the film in­dus­try on the lo­cal front and, more im­por­tant­ly, he wants film­mak­ers to be­come as ef­fi­cient as they are cre­ative. Wil­son says, "Our film placed sec­ond next to a film with a bud­get of around ten mil­lion US, big name ac­tors and I think the BBC was one of the stu­dios in­volved. But in the big mar­ket­place, the bud­gets do not mat­ter, it is the qual­i­ty of the end prod­uct and how com­pelling the sto­ry is."

shed­ule?tues­day 15

Open­ing night (lim­it­ed tick­ets for sale)

�2 6 pm OPEN­ING RE­CEP­TION

RAIN

Maria Go­v­an / 2008 / Ba­hamas / 94'

A young girl de­ter­mines to out­run her fate

QUEEN OF THE BRANDS / TT / 5'

Movi­eTowne

�2 9pm AF­TER PAR­TY, Zen

wednes­day 16

�2 11am SHORTS PRO­GRAMME 1

5 Win­ning School Shorts / TT / 25'

Melt­ing Trea­sure / TT / 5'

Rio Claro / TT / 19'

Find­ing Your Own / TT / 9'

Movi­eTowne

�2 1pm SHORTS PRO­GRAMME 2

Rac­ing De­f­i­n­i­tions* / TT / 21

Leroy: Frag­ments of His-Sto­ry / TT / 20'

Breathe* / TT / 9'

Sin­gles Bar* / TT / 16'

Movi­eTowne

�2 3pm TRE­FOS­SA Ida Does / 2008 / Suri­name / 110'

Por­trait of this in­flu­en­tial Suri­namese writer

USE­LESS THINGS / Can / 16'

Movi­eTowne

�2 5.30pm SPE­CIAL SHORTS PRO­GRAMME

Her­man Tales: Gangs­ta* / TT / 25'

The Bake Shop Ghost / USA / 17'

The Con­tem­po­rary Sor­cer­er* / TT / 6'

Rac­ing De­f­i­n­i­tions* / TT / 21'

Movi­eTowne

�2 7.15pm THREE WOMEN Robert Alt­man / 1988 / USA / 102'

1 woman be­came 2; 2 women be­came 3;

3 women be­came 1

stu­diofilm­club

�2 8pm RUDO Y CUR­SI Car­los Cuar�n / 2008 / Mex­i­co / 103'

Fate's game with foot­balling broth­ers

THE SMALL­EST RIV­ER IN ALMI­RANTE* / USA / 15' Movi­eTowne

thurs­day 17

�2 11am SHORTS PRO­GRAMME 1

(See Wednes­day 16)

�2 1pm SHORTS PRO­GRAMME 3

Speech­less / TT / 18'

The Bake Shop Ghost / USA / 17'

The Con­tem­po­rary Sor­cer­er / TT / 6'

Silent Sil­hou­ettes...18 / TT / 5'

Movi­eTowne