Caribbean Tales Film Festival Incubator inspires young filmmakers
October 13, 2020
Telling stories and creating content enticed Kristen Lambie at a young age.
Soon after migrating from Jamaica at age nine, mom took her wide-eyed daughter to the Eglinton Avenue West and Oakwood Avenue neighbourhhod where there is a plethora of Black-owned businesses.
“I would accompany her to get little things she needed in the house,” recalled Lambie who was a participant in last year’s ReelWorld Screen Institute Emerging 20 program that connects Canada’s racially diverse emerging talent with film and television executives and professionals. “That was my introduction to a whole community of Jamaican people that looked like me and spoke like me. It felt like home.”
Inspired by visits to the business and cultural hub for Black Canadians, the young filmmaker/screenwriter is developing a fictional fantasy, ‘Fever Street’, which won ‘The Big Pitch’ top prize at this year’s Caribbean Tales Film Festival (CTFF) Incubator on September 11.
“Over the years, there has been a lot of reconstruction in this area, leaving community members and business owners with just a faint memory of the home they used to know,” Lambie, who produced the mini-digital series, ‘Pretty for a Whack Girl’, said. “There was a culture shock when I first came here, but it was through this community that I was able to feel a sense of belonging. ‘Fever Street’ is a way to re-imagine how community can push back against gentrification and how they can look into preserving their culture.”
In its 13th year, the incubator is a development and production hub for producers.
Lambie, who has an honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication & Film Studies from Wilfrid Laurier University and a Master of Arts in Media Production from Ryerson University, said the experience was priceless.
“Opportunities like this allow me to not only make connections, but to create my content and get it out there,” said the recipient of the National Black Film Festival Best Actress Award in 2019 for her role in the short film, ‘Tuition’. “This incubator has allowed me to showcase what my work looks like and it reinforces that Caribbean stories can work in the mainstream industry.”
To support her project, Lambie received a $50,000 production credit.
Runner-up Fennella Bruce is the writer/director of a two-part documentary that tells the story of seven-time Juno Award winner Wesley Williams (Maestro) significant impact on hip hop music in Canada.
“I wanted to do something that I am passionate about,” she said. “I love music and music documentaries. I wanted to do a story that I know. We are of Guyanese heritage and our fathers know one another. I was a bit tentative about pitching him the idea, but when I did so, I was relieved when he said he trusted me to tell the story and I could go ahead with the project. In terms of hip hop, I don’t think we have documented that history.”
Bruce started her pitch with the opening lyrics to ‘Let Your Backbone Slide’, Williams’ debut single released in 1989 from his first album, ‘Symphony in Effect’.
The only rap song in Canada’s Songwriters Hall of Fame was the number one selling Canadian rap track for nearly two decades.
“Maestro laid the foundation for hip hop in Canada,” said Bruce who was the first Black female news producer at Citytv before starting a media consultancy company in 2018. “He burst into a world that did not exist here and is the only Black Canadian to sell over a million copies in Canada. I was the pesky little sister that watched my brother and him from the first rap group. I was there from the very beginning. The first part of the documentary is going to take you back to 1988 when Wes left school and decided he wanted to be a rap star. In that one year, he created the biggest song of his career. That song went on to give influence and hope to future rap stars like K-OS, Kardinal Offishall and Drake.”
The incubator, she said, helped to hone her business ideas.
“My background is in television, so film is a whole new area for me,” Bruce said. “With the trailer I put together, that was a process that I had to refine and figure out how to tell my story in one minute. This incubator program provided me with the guidance I needed.”
The documentary will be released in 2024 to coincide with the 35th anniversary of ‘Let Your Backbone Slide’.
“We will bring old and new school together, remix this song and document it and then have a concert to finish it off,” added Bruce.
Public Enemy’s frontman Chuck D is the project narrator.
Asis Sethi is the co-writer/director of ‘Slam Dunk, Sehaj!’ that was voted second-runner-up.
“Sports magazines cover pages always had a man in his jersey and a woman in bikinis,” said the filmmaker who teaches Film & TV Production at Humber Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning. “But recently, I saw a magazine cover with a woman in her jersey, a basketball in one hand and her baby in the other and I said to myself, ‘Times have changed’. The Canadian women’s basketball team is doing far better than the men, yet no one talks about it.”
The dramedy feature film revolves around a former South Asian basketball superstar who becomes a dutiful wife and mother after giving up on her hoops dreams.
Fennella Bruce (l), Asis Sethi and Kristen Lambie (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
Also making pitches were Roble Issa, Ana de Lara, Yasmin Evering-Kerr, Suki Motoyi, Aeyliya Husain, Muniyra Douglas, Kai-Little White, the team of Kristy Plange & Daisy Komujuni and Nauzanin Knight, the daughter of Barbadian-born scholar and 2010 Harry Jerome Award winner Dr. Andy Knight who is a Professor at the University of Alberta.
The Executive Producer of 1844 Studios, Knight completed her Masters in Countering Organized Crime and Terrorism in 2014 at University College London and published a non-fiction book, ‘State Terrorism in Iran: Understanding the Case of the Iranian Baha’i Community’, before turning her attention to film projects.
Her pitch, ‘Notes on Being Un-Popular’, is a serialized comedy series for teen audiences.
Incubator participant Nauzanin Knight (l) with Caribbean Tales Film Festival founder Frances-Anne Solomon (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
“As an unabashed bi-racial band nerd, I wanted to create a show that says unequivocally drama doesn’t only happen in the world of popular people,” said Knight whose nuanced stories reflect the uniqueness of her heritage and her international life. “Nerds also go through a lot of drama and it is just as interesting.”
The filmmakers presented their projects for cash, mentorship and support.
They made three-minute pitches to industry professionals who judged them on strength of concept, marketability, viability and best pitch.
The judges were Ava Torres who is a Drama Scripted Executive with CBC Content, Sphere Media President & Executive Director Jennifer Kawaja, Bell Media Production Executive Mitch Geddes and Ethiopian-Canadian producer/filmmaker Tamara Dawit who is the Canada Media Fund Vice-President of Growth & Inclusion.
The Big Pitch judges Jennifer Kawaja (l), Ava Torres, Tamara Dawit & Mitch Geddes (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
“Making the selection was tough for us, but the content was greatly appreciated and we felt strongly about all of them,” Torres noted.
Produced by Caribbean Tales Media Group in partnership with the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), ‘The Big Pitch’ incubator highlighted 12 projects by Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) filmmakers who were part of the Caribbean Tales Black Incubator & Studio Access Project (CTBISAP) and the CineFam Limitless Incubator.
The 2022 Incubator cohort (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
Supported by FedDev Ontario, the CTBISAP delivers programs and services to support innovation and economic growth in southern Ontario.
The Limitless program assists with the development and promotion of extraordinary original works by women and non-binary people of colour whose voices are typically under-represented or marginalized within the Canadian media landscape.
“These training programs took the form of nine-month internships where we are able to give each participant $10,000 in order to produce a ‘Proof of Concept’ for their project,” said CTFF founder Frances-Anne Solomon. “We supported them throughout the entire process from concept and development to scripting, production and pitching.”
The incubator sponsors include Trinity Square Video whose Executive Director David Plant has been a longtime CTFF supporter.
David Plant (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
“The work we have been doing with Caribbean Tales is among the most meaningful I believe that we do,” said the former City of Toronto Film Commissioner. “I always felt we were not telling enough stories about Toronto. There are thousands of meaningful and valuable stories that are not seen and told.”
Former filmmaker and Telefilm Canada executive Barbara Chirinos attended this year’s incubator and was impressed by the pitches.
Barbara Chirinos (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
“I was blown away by the level of expertise and excellence,” said the Vancouver-based Regional Leader, National Promotion with responsibility for the Pacific, Prairies, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. “You should all be proud. Share with us, expand our minds, have us grow and continue to do what you are doing because it is important to us. I have nothing to do with development or finance. I would like the filmmakers to, at least, consider me to be a gateway to this huge organization that could appear to be faceless.”
