Cherisse Moe

AI film­mak­er Ver­e­na Siblal Boodoos­ingh want­ed to cre­ate some­thing cin­e­mat­ic, mag­i­cal, and con­nect­ed to lo­cal iden­ti­ty. She de­liv­ers ex­act­ly that with “Pa­pa Bois’ Por­tal,” a Caribbean fan­ta­sy mi­cro-se­ries root­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s folk­lore and his­to­ry.

The sto­ry fol­lows Pa­pa Bois, the guardian of the for­est, as he guides four chil­dren through por­tals across time and place. To­geth­er, they un­cov­er hid­den truths and re­live the emo­tions that shaped the re­gion.

The first episode, Fa­tel Raza­ck, pre­miered on May 30 — In­di­an Ar­rival Day. This 12-minute pro­duc­tion in­tro­duces Mo­han, a lit­tle boy who has to leave his grand­fa­ther be­hind and set sail for Trinidad with his par­ents. Bound by a shared love for play­ing the dho­lak, Mo­han’s per­spec­tive touch­es on the harsh so­cio-eco­nom­ic con­di­tions in In­dia un­der British rule and the emo­tion­al pain and un­cer­tain­ty fam­i­lies car­ried in search of a bet­ter life.

View­ers will al­so meet the cun­ning trick­ster, Anan­si the spi­der, whose wit keeps you guess­ing.

Ver­e­na plans to grow this in­to a big­ger se­ries — up to 20 short episodes, each five to ten min­utes long — that blends ed­u­ca­tion with en­ter­tain­ment. “We grew up hear­ing about these char­ac­ters, but I want­ed to reimag­ine them in a mod­ern, vi­su­al­ly im­mer­sive way that could stand along­side in­ter­na­tion­al fan­ta­sy con­tent while still cel­e­brat­ing our cul­ture,” she says.

Lock in for mys­tery, ad­ven­ture, rich sto­ry­telling, and a fierce sense of Caribbean pride.

We Life & Cul­ture: Why did you de­cide to go the route of an AI pro­duc­tion and how did the tech­nol­o­gy help bring this his­to­ry to life?

VSB: I’ve al­ways been pas­sion­ate about vi­su­al sto­ry­telling, es­pe­cial­ly with­in the sci-fi and fan­ta­sy space. Be­fore “Pa­pa Bois’ Por­tal”, I wrote a sci-fi nov­el called “The Cir­cle Ar­mor”, loose­ly in­spired by At­lantis, and I al­ways dreamed of turn­ing it in­to a film or an­i­mat­ed project. My hus­band, along with a few lo­cal artists, sug­gest­ed us­ing AI be­cause they felt the tech­nol­o­gy matched the fu­tur­is­tic and imag­i­na­tive themes of the sto­ry. Back in 2023, I con­nect­ed with a few AI artists and start­ed ex­plor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties, but when spon­sor­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties fell through at the very last minute, I sim­ply could not af­ford to con­tin­ue. It was hon­est­ly a crush­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter in­vest­ing so much pas­sion and hope in­to it. But in­stead of giv­ing up, I de­cid­ed to ful­ly im­merse my­self in learn­ing the tech­nol­o­gy. I spent the past two and a half years deep-div­ing in­to AI film­mak­ing, watch­ing YouTube tu­to­ri­als, study­ing the craft, ex­per­i­ment­ing with tools, and con­nect­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al­ly award-win­ning AI film­mak­ers and cre­ators. The tech­nol­o­gy has evolved dra­mat­i­cal­ly since then, mak­ing it far more ac­ces­si­ble and ca­pa­ble for in­de­pen­dent cre­ators. For “Pa­pa Bois’ Por­tal”, AI be­came a bridge be­tween imag­i­na­tion and pos­si­bil­i­ty. The AI film in­dus­try is dom­i­nat­ed by men, so to make it this far is to ex­ist in de­fi­ance, to carve out space where none was giv­en, and to prove that a woman’s voice, es­pe­cial­ly one from the Caribbean, be­longs not on the mar­gins but at the very heart of the frame.

We Life & Cul­ture: You be­lieve that our lo­cal tra­di­tions are dy­ing out. Why is pre­serv­ing these tra­di­tions so im­por­tant to you per­son­al­ly, and how does this project help fight that loss?

VSB: I’m not on­ly a cre­ator, I’m al­so a moth­er and a his­to­ry ma­jor who has al­ways been very pa­tri­ot­ic about Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean. I con­stant­ly think about the kind of cul­tur­al in­her­i­tance we are leav­ing be­hind for our chil­dren. So many of our folk­lore char­ac­ters, sto­ries, say­ings, and tra­di­tions that once shaped Caribbean iden­ti­ty are slow­ly fad­ing with each gen­er­a­tion. Many young peo­ple know more about for­eign su­per­heroes and myths than they do about Pa­pa Bois, the La­ga­hoo, or the his­to­ry that built this re­gion. Our tra­di­tions re­mind us who we are and where we came from. That’s one of the rea­sons “Pa­pa Bois’ Por­tal” means so much to me. If even one child watch­es the se­ries and be­comes cu­ri­ous about their cul­ture, their an­ces­tors, or our folk­lore tra­di­tions, then I feel like I’ve al­ready ac­com­plished some­thing mean­ing­ful. The se­ries will be host­ed on my YouTube chan­nel - @ver­e­na­Si­blal7

We Life & Cul­ture: You are al­so an au­thor. Can you share a bit of that jour­ney with us?

VSB: It was ten years ago when my daugh­ter was about one year old. I was at a book­store look­ing for a fun, in­ter­ac­tive chil­dren’s book that could in­tro­duce her to Trinidad and To­ba­go in an en­gag­ing way. I re­mem­ber feel­ing a bit sur­prised by how few books tru­ly re­flect­ed our iden­ti­ty in a way that would cap­ture a child’s imag­i­na­tion. The book­store clerk ac­tu­al­ly made a light joke and said, “Why don’t you write one?” and I don’t think she re­alised what she set in mo­tion in that mo­ment. With my back­ground in his­to­ry, my ex­pe­ri­ence as a TV host, and my work in scriptwrit­ing, I sud­den­ly felt like I al­ready had the tools to cre­ate ex­act­ly what I was search­ing for. I went home and start­ed de­vel­op­ing the idea for what would be­come Ana and Her Mag­ic Dogs. My daugh­ter’s name is Ana and I had four dogs back then, so it came from a re­al place, too. What be­gan as some­thing per­son­al for my daugh­ter quick­ly grew in­to a full se­ries, be­cause I re­alised oth­er par­ents were prob­a­bly look­ing for the same thing. Ana and Her Mag­ic Dogs: My Coun­try, Trinidad and To­ba­go, is es­pe­cial­ly close to my heart be­cause it earned me a NALIS 1st Time Au­thors’ Award in 2018.

We Life & Cul­ture: Tell us a lit­tle about your­self be­hind the cam­era.

VSB: I earned a de­gree in His­to­ry and In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, and a Mas­ter’s in Mass Com­mu­ni­ca­tions from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leices­ter. Along­side my me­dia ca­reer, I have been in­volved in event pro­duc­tion and live en­ter­tain­ment with my hus­band through our event brand Mo­men­tum, which has brought in­ter­na­tion­al acts such as Dip­lo, Ma­jor Laz­er, Dami­an Mar­ley, Pop­caan and Rae Srem­murd to Trinidad and To­ba­go. I al­so dance at Har­low Stu­dios, which I con­sid­er my form of ther­a­py, and I hold a cer­tifi­cate in act­ing with Kirk Baltz as well as train­ing in archery with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Archery Fed­er­a­tion. My moth­er was a diplo­mat, the Vice Con­sul of New York for Trinidad and To­ba­go from 2007 to 2011. My time there helped me im­merse my­self in glob­al com­mu­ni­ties and film cul­ture; it be­came a door swing­ing in­ward, a lens fo­cus­ing the world. Be­ing a wife and moth­er of two shapes al­most every sto­ry I choose to tell.