Unheard Voices: Cinema of Jamaica

By: kuxa kanema

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, 234 kilometres in length and as much as 80 kilometres in width, amounting to 11,100 square kilometres. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about 145 kilometres south of Cuba, and 190 kilometres west of Hispaniola, the island harboring the nation states Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Its indigenous Arawakan-speaking Taíno inhabitants named the island Xaymaca, meaning the Land of Wood and Water, or the “Land of Springs”.

Once a Spanish possession known as Santiago, in 1655 it became an English, and later a British colony, known as “Jamaica”. It achieved full independence in 1962. With 2.8 million people, it is the third most populous anglophone country in the Americas, after the United States and Canada. It remains a Commonwealth realm with Queen Elizabeth II as Head of State. Kingston is the largest city in Jamaica and the country’s capital.

Reggae music is one of Jamaica’s most famous cultural aspects. It was derived from a form of Jamaican music called Dancehall. Dancehall then evolved into Ska, which was a very energetic music with trumpets and horns. From Ska sprung the slow and steady beats of Rocksteady music. Immediately following was the evolution into Reggae music. Reggae gave birth to many famous artist the greatest of which is undoubtedly Robert Nester Marley, otherwise known as Bob Marley. His music touched the four corners of the world and even in spite of his untimely death in 1981 his music is still heard in cafes, clubs, houses and bars across the world. Jamaica is also home to such recent and famous artist as Jimmy Cliff, who has had various performances in American productions, Beenie man, Bounty Killa and Mr. “Bombastic” himself, Shaggy. Jamaica’s culture is also accompanied by the folk music of the island. Jamaica’s folk music is said to have its origin in West Africa, meaning it is both African and Jamaican.

Jamaica’s most familiar faces

Bob Marley

Usian Bolt

Grace Jones

CINEMA
Already in 1948 the local government installed the Motion Picture Industry Encouragement Act. Despite this initiative Jamaica’s film industry never blossomed. Filmmakers have tried over the years to have the laws amended, but have met total apathy from government. The law offers incentives in terms of duty free importation of equipment and materials, but the industry is begging for incentives to be offered on the production side. Jamaica’s film industry began in 1982 when the first Film Commission was formed. Since then, the Commission has handled most of the major studios. The Film Commission acts as a one stop office. The office assists with location scouting and location photographs and takes the producer from pre-production through production.If sufficient funding is made available on the production cost, the small but talented Jamaican film scene might surprise us all.

The Reggae Film Festival is a unique annual event which takes place each year in Kingston, Jamaica, first held in 2008. It is coordinated by film maker and film festival organizer Barbara Blake Hannah, Special Tasks Consultant to the Minister in collaboration with Peter Gittins of Reggae Films UK. Minister of Culture Olivia Grange says “the Reggae Film Festival will give Jamaicans the opportunity to view some of the best of the hundreds of films made about and because of the world famous music of Jamaica, that not only reflect the wide interest in Jamaican music, but also bring tourists on vacation and income to members of the entertainment fraternity, as well as the nation”. The Reggae Film Festival is intended as the foundation activity of a Jamaica Film Academy that will archive films for research, screening and education. The Jamaica Film Academy aims to preserve all moving images relating to Jamaica and its musical past. The festival shows films relating to reggae which are made each year all over the globe, it is a place for Reggae fans to come together each year to watch the latest reggae related films and a place for members of the film industry to link up with each other.

NEW CARIBBEAN CINEMA
The fundamental philosophy behind the series is to create a cinema that is visually stunning, technically sound and that reflects the vast range of ideas, creativity and skill of the teams behind them. Once an idea has been agreed upon, the story is developed and built on so that on screen the characters reflect the depth and richness of the society that they represent. From idea to execution, New Caribbean Cinema’s mission is to achieve creative excellence, by creating images that resonate and stories that have a deep cultural impact.

1.Perry Henzell
Perry Henzell (March 7, 1936, Annotto Bay, St. Mary’s, Jamaica – November 30, 2006, Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth’s, Jamaica) was most famous for being the director of the first Jamaican feature film, The Harder They Come. Henzell, whose ancestors included Huguenot glassblowers and an old English family who had made their fortune growing sugar on Antigua, grew up on the Caymanas sugar cane estate near Kingston. He was sent to a boarding school in the United Kingdom at fourteen and later attended McGill University in Montreal in 1953 and 1954. He then dropped out of this school, choosing instead to hitchhike around Europe. He eventually got work as a stagehand at the BBC. He returned to Jamaica in the 1950s, where he directed advertisements for some years until he began work on The Harder They Come. The film stars reggae singer Jimmy Cliff, who plays Ivanhoe Martin, a character based on Rhyging, a real-life Jamaican criminal who achieved fame in the 1940s. It was released in February 1973 in New York City by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures to little attention. It became more popular when it was played to midnight audiences nationwide the following April and in the years to come gained a cult reputation. Henzell also shot some footage for what was planned as his next film, No Place Like Home, in Harder’s aftermath, but he went broke before he could finish the film. Fed up by this, and the lack of finance for further production, he went on to become a writer, publishing his first novel, Power Game, in 1982. Both were meant to complete a planned trilogy of films centring on Ivanhoe Martin. The footage for No Place Like Home was lost. Years later, he came across editing tapes in a lab in New York. Just to have a sense of completion, he worked on the project. When he showed it to a few friends, their response was enthusiastic. He eventually was able to retrieve the original footage. No Place Like Home was screened for the public at the 31st annual Toronto International Film Festival in September 2006. Henzell died of cancer on November 30, 2006, aged 70, and is survived by his widow Sally who is herself a respected art director.

the Harder They Come 1972
No Place Like Home completed 2006

2.Trevor D Rhone
Rhone began his theatre career as a teacher after a three year stint at Rose Bruford College, an English drama school. He was part of the renaissance of Jamaican theatre in the early 1970s. Rhone participated in a group called Theatre ’77, which established The Barn, a small theatre in Kingston, Jamaica to stage local performances. The vision of the group that came together in 1965 was that in 12 years, by 1977, there would be professional theatre in Jamaica. Among his works is the script to The Harder They Come. In 1976 he directed his sole feature film Smile Orange based on his stage play. It takes a humorous and somewhat acidic view of the tourism business, mostly from the point of view of Ringo, a hustler, con man and waiter. Rhone also wrote the screenplay for One Love in 2003 and sadly passed away in 2009.

Smile Orange 1976

3.Lenny Little White
In 1966, the film bug hit him when he was one of the doubles for American actor Jim Brown who was starring in a film made in Jamaica called the Mercenaries. He first wrote and directed films for the Jamaican Information Service. After migrating to Canada, he studied at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute in Toronto, before going to graduate school at Northwestern University in Chicago, gaining a Master of Arts degree in Film. Since then he has worked in all areas of communications in Canada, the United States and the Caribbean. In 1980 he directed his first fiction feature Children of Babylon, a film about people making love while searching for love. The vortex is Penny, a young university graduate student; Rick – an artist; Luke – a “dreadlocks” farmhand; Dorcas – the housekeeper and Laura – the wealthy American owner of the plantation and greathouse, which silently represents the proverbial "house divided against itself Lennie’s many credits include directing the first documentary on Blacks in Canada in a film called Born Black. A film about the University of the West Indies, Beginnings, which won an award at the Tasknet Film Festival. His productions include numerous commercials and documentaries most notably a full-length documentary on reggae called Sounds of An Era. In 2006 he directed the biography Glory To Gloriana about a young country girl, Gloria Minto who was determined to make the most of life. She came from humble beginnings and with the help of those around her and the will of only a Jamaican woman, she fought her way to success and prosperity. He remains Jamaica most prolific film maker and has perservered where so many others lost faith.

Children of Babylon 1980
Born Black
Beginnings
Sound of An Era
Glory To Gloriana 2006

4.Stefan Paul
Stefan Paul is a German documentary film maker whose chief interest has been in Reggae music and Jamaican culture. His most popular film was the Jamaican/German co-production Reggae Sunsplash in 1979 about the famous festival which featured the likes of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. In 1981 he directed Bongo Man a documentary/music film starring Jimmy Cliff and in the same year released a Bob Marley concert film simply called Bob Marley. In 1998 he released Bob Marley Live In Concert shot in 1980 one year before Marley’s death, which became one of the most popular music films in history. Paul has also worked with Laurie Anderson, Jan Plewka and Hans Kammerer.

Reggae Sunsplash 1978
Bongo Man 1981
Bob Marley 1981
Bob Marley In Concert 1998

5.Dickie Jobson
As the right-hand man of Island Records’ founder Chris Blackwell, Dickie Jobson found himself managing the label’s latest signing, Bob Marley, in 1973-74 — the breakthrough years in the reggae singer’s career. Until Marley and the Wailers released their first album, Catch a Fire, on Island in 1973, and toured the UK that year, they were little known outside the Caribbean. With Jobson organising their gigs and studio sessions, their next two albums, Burnin’ (also 1973, including I Shot the Sheriff and Get Up Stand Up) and Natty Dread (released in 1975 and featuring No Woman No Cry) would propel Marley towards international fame. Jobson also played a key role in signing the little-known U2 to Island in 1980, their first step towards superstardom, and he acted as their unofficial manager and fixer during their early days in Jamaica. In 1982 backed by Blackwell’s film company, Jobson wrote and directed the movie Countryman, which became something of a cult classic, in Jamaica and beyond, after being shown at the Cannes festival. Using several Marley songs on the soundtrack, it told the story of two young Americans forced to crashland their small aircraft on Hellfire beach, Jamaica, where a Rastafarian, the real-life character known as Countryman, helped them to evade police who claim they are drug traffickers. In one memorable scene, round a beach campfire, Countryman delights the Americans by using his dangerously sharp machete to chop lobster, snapper and tropical fruits while the three smoke giant spliffs. Jobson was working on a sequel to the movie, entitled Curse of the Golden Idol, featuring the same Rasta man, nearly 30 years on, his dreadlocks now grey. Unfortunately he passed away in 2009 and the sequel was not made.

Countryman 1982

6.Lol Creme
Lol Creme (born 19 September 1947 in Prestwich, near Bury, England) is an English musician and music video director. He sings, plays guitar and keyboards. He was born Laurence Neil Creme to a family of Jewish descent, and later took up the nickname Lolagon. While attending art school in Manchester, he met Kevin Godley. They became part of several bands together, most significantly 10cc, and in 1976 departed 10cc to record as Godley & Creme. The pair later became prolific music video directors. In 1998, Creme became a member of the band Art of Noise, along with Trevor Horn, and directed videos for such artists who recorded with them as Tom Jones. He directed the 1991 Jamaican comedy film The Lunatic, about a village madman, Aloysious, who has the amazing ability to talk to anything, including trees, cows and cricket balls. Portrayed from a Jamaican prospective with an acute eye for the authentic dialect of the land. Aloysious meets Inga, a German nymphomaniac, who uses her ‘pum pum power’ to capture his heart.

the Lunatic 1991

7.Rick Elgood and Don Letts
Letts was born in London, England and educated at Tenison’s School in Kennington. In 1975, Letts ran the trendy London clothing store Acme Attractions selling, “electric-blue zoot suits and jukeboxes, and pumping dub reggae all day long.” Letts was deeply inspired by the music coming from his parents’ homeland Jamaica, in particular Bob Marley. After seeing one of Marley’s gigs at the Odeon in Hammersmith (June, 1976) he was able to sneak into the hotel and spent the night talking to and befriending Marley.] By the mid 1970s Acme had quite a scene attracting all the like of The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, Deborah Harry and Bob Marley. Letts quit the retail business to manage the band, The Slits. He was able to get the Slits to open for The Clash during the White Riot tour. While on the White Riot tour he decided that management was not for him, but continued to shoot material for The Punk Rock Movie. In 1997 Letts teamed up with fellow British director/producer Rick Elgood to direct the smash Dancehall Queen about a street vendor Marcia struggling to bring up two children. The film was a huge sucess internationally and brought about a renaissance in Jamaican cinema which had been languishing for the last 15 years. In 2003 they directed the lesser hit One Love about Kassa a free-wheelin rasta man, who falls for a straight laced gospel singer Serena, when they both meet as they enter a music contest. The pair have worked with the Jam, the Clash, New Order and Derek Jarman. They remain important cultural figures both in Jamaica and the United Kingdom.

Dancehall Queen 1997
One Love 2003

8.Chris Browne and Carl Bradshaw
In 1999 Browne directed the most finacially successful Jamaican film so far. Third World Cop starred Paul Campbell and was produced by Chris Blackwell of Island records and the legendary Carl Bradshaw Jamaica’s best known actor who has appeared in Harder They Come, Dancehall Queen, Countryman and many others. Although Bradshaw has never himself directed a film he remains Jamaica’s most influential man in cinema. Third World Cop tells the story of Capon, a loose-cannon cop, who returns back to his home in Kingston to join the island nation’s special forces. Immediately upon return, Capone discovers an operation consisting of illegal importation of guns via church charities. It’s up to Capone to stop the importation of these guns; and this might mean going up against one of his childhood friends. Browne, the nephew of Perry Henzell has struggled to find directing oppurtunities since and this shows just how fragile Jamaica’s film industry is. Instead he has worked as a camera operator for dismal Hollywood films such as Shattered Image, How Stella Got Her Groove Back and most recently A Perfect Getaway. One can only hope Browne will get to make another feature in his homeland.

Third World Cop 1999

9.Cess Silvera
In 2002 Silvera directed Shottas a crime film about two young men who participate in organized crime in Kingston, Jamaica and Miami, Florida. It stars Kymani Marley, Spragga Benz, Paul Campbell and Louie Rankin. Despite its low budget, the distribution of an unfinished bootleg made it a cult favourite long before its official direct-to-video release in the United States by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in 2006. Silvera since has moved his attentions to Hollywood as yet without success.

Shottas 2002

10.Michael Phillip Edwards
Following from the successes of Dancehall Queen and Third World Cop have come films like Runt directed by Michael Phillip Edwards. Runt is a strikingly passionate story of a Jamaican-American man, Christopher Davis, who confronts his ancestral demons in order to become the man he wants to be for his son. From Los Angeles, Christopher returns home to Jamaica when he feels his “snap” coming on. A “snap” is that moment the nice gentle Jamaican man everyone knew, all but disappears to reveal the headstrong, philandering, macho, prideful, violent, male spirit that lives within. During his “healing” and through his childhood flashbacks, we discover a character that is complex, conflicted, and passionately layered. The film stars its’ director and the legendary Carl Bradshaw. Edwards’s career has seen him seek easier options in Hollywood directing B-movies. Like so many countries the lure of Hollywood has stolen many of its brightest stars.

Runt 2005

Other significant Jamaican films
Rockers Ted Bafaloukos 1978
Third World, Jérôme Laperrousaz 1980
Rude Boy: the Jamaican Don, Desmond Gumbs 2003

Jamaica For Sale, Esther Figueroa 2006
Holding On To Jah, Roger Landon Hall 2009
Ichiban Reggae Japan, R.Ross 2009

Better Must Come, Storm Saulter 2010
Nanny Iman Shervington 2010
Roots Time Silvestre Jacobi 2006

FOREIGN FILMS SET IN OR FILMED IN JAMAICA
Belly, Hype Williams,1998, US
the Black Swan, Henry King, 1942, US
Made In Jamaica, Jerome Laperrousaz, 2008, France