Krista Henry, Staff Reporter
Leonie Forbes in a scene from 'A Winter's Tale'. - Contributed photos
A winter's night turns tragic for Caribbean nationals in Canada in the award-winning film A Winter Tale from Trinidadian director Frances-Anne Solomon.
Following a string of successful North American premieres and theatrical releases, A Winter Tale will open to moviegoers across Jamaica on April 9. Centred in the downtown Toronto, Canada, community of Parkdale, the film's cast features a number of Jamaican talents, including Leonie Forbes and Peter Williams. It is written, directed and produced by Frances- Anne Solomon, who takes the camera's eyes into the world of black-on-black crime.
Over the past year, A Winter Tale has travelled the world, garnering rave reviews and international recognition through film festivals in Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, New York, Trinidad and England and carried home the Outstanding Canadian Feature Film Award at the prestigious ReelWorld Film Festival. It also won the People's Choice Award for Best Caribbean Feature at the 2007 Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival.
Humanises issues
Frances-Anne Solomon, producer of 'A Winter Tale'.
In a recent phone interview with The Sunday Gleaner, director Frances-Anne Solomon said, "The film is a different look on black violence. It really humanises some of the issues. It's really the story behind the headlines - how lives are affected and why they do what they do. It's about a group of men who come together in contest of gun violence in Toronto."
The plot unfolds when a group of black men form a support group after a young boy was killed by a stray bullet, looking at issues such as gun violence and drug use.
Not to be confused with Shakespeare's play The Winter's Tale, the film A Winter Tale alludes to the the playwright's work to a small extent. Solomon says "it's called a winter tale because it's set in Canada in the cold and it's a story of hardship and difficulty. The winter is a metaphor for obstacles in Caribbean people's lives in Canada. One character actually goes mad with pressure and starts to quote from Shakespeare".
To pursue the story for A Winter Tale, Solomon and her team of 10 persons immersed themselves in the lives and stories of persons living in these circumstances on a day-to-day basis. She attests that the script was built from the ground up and captures the realities of the Caribbean diaspora in Canada.
Accomplishments
A Winter Tale is just one of many accomplishments for the talented director, producer and writer Solomon. Born in England to Trinidadian parents and raised in Trinidad, Solomon is the artistic director and president of the two companies she founded, Leda Serene Films, her film and television production vehicle, and CaribbeanTales a multimedia company producing educational resources based on Caribbean-heritage storytelling.
According to Solomon, she had a love for storytelling from an early stage. "When I was growing up, I used to put on little plays for my parents and I really wanted to be a writer. But we didn't really have the tradition of film-making in the Caribbean; it was when I was at university I studied theatre and specialised in film-making. The first time I directed a play, I said I'm home now," she said.
Since then, she has gone to direct What My Mother Told Me, The Literature Alive Documentary Series and the hit sitcom Lord Have Mercy, which was broadcast on four Canadian networks. Solomon is currently pursuing other projects, but will soon be in Jamaica for the premiere, which she is excited about.
"We have a lot of Jamaicans involved in the film, so in ways it's a Jamaican movie. Jamaica is the entertainment capital of the Caribbean. When I do work, I have to infuse the Caribbean into it, whether its themes, language and material," Solomon said.
The Jamaican premiere of A Winter Tale will mark the first of several theatrical releases slated to take place across the Caribbean. Throughout May, June and July, the film will travel across the region, opening at cinemas in Trinidad, Barbados, Antigua and St Lucia.
