We here at CaribbeanTales & Leda Serene wish you Peace and Happiness for the Season, and for the New Year.
[Photo - L-R: Rany Ly (Technical Co-ordinator), Michael Miller (actor, A Winter Tale), and Frances-Anne, on the streets of Toronto filming A Winter Tale.] Some quick updates:
* "Blood Dub and The Matriarch", our Literature Alive Documentary on dbi.young, won the Audience Choice Award at the San Diego Women's Film Festival.
* CaribbeanTales has been awarded funding by the Trillium foundation to present the "Winter Tale" Project as a theatre play in Toronto schools in 2007/8.
* "Word Hammers", our documentary on Nourbese Phillip, will be screened as part of the 4th Mpenzi Film Festival in Toronto, February 2007.
I leave you with a clip of Nourbese Phillip, talking about the gift of reading and books.
This week we began shooting pickups & recording ADR for the feature film "A Winter Tale". These events brought my friend Peter Williams from Vancouver - he plays the lead.
To all the cast who participated this week: Peter Bailey, Nicole Stamp, Ryan Ishmael, p! Barrington (so sorry for "abandoning" you in Parkdale bro), and Valerie Buhagiar, as well as our tiny crew: Thank you for coming out. For one day (Tuesday) there was snow, but it melted before we had a chance to point a camera at it. For those not in the know, our film needs SNOW to justify the title and complete a central conceit of the film, which is about a group of characters under seige in the cold (a metaphor many immigrants to Canada can identify with strongly). Thanks to Global Warming, 2006 broke all records, and there was no snow during principal photography.
But snow is promised in the coming weeks ...
In other newz: Warm thanks to all who have emailed or called in kind compliments about our series Literature Alive. They are much appreciated.
Here's one from writer Rachel Manley:
Dear Frances, I have long thought your enterprise a most worthwhile and essential one, not just for the Caribbean in diaspora, but for the Caribbean at home...We are, after all, one. And what strengthens us anywhere strengthens us everywhere. It also strengthens Canada as you deftly collect what Martin Carter calls "our scattered skeleton" and fold us into this country's unique mix - their "mosaic."
If you missed the premiere of Rachel's film on Bravo! two weeks ago, here is a clip from it:
In The Shadow of My Fathers: Rachel Manley, was directed by Lana Lovell.
You can buy copies of all our shows from our estore
We here at CaribbeanTales & Leda Serene wish you Peace and Happiness for the Season, and for the New Year.
