Free February.

Black. History. Month. Three little words we link together in February, then not again until a year has transpired.

I dig history. No wonder I went on to study Archaeology. (allow me a little chuckle at that there petit-pun, and a hope the reader will accept my disarming icebreaker - as such.)

Couple things about history ... (1) it happened, and (2) there's an awful lot of it, with more made every day. It can be micro or macro, ipso and facto. And, it leaves clues in as wide a variety.

I got an early start on this season-of-reason by reading the story of Aminata Diallo, engagingly imagined around a lot of said clues, by renown Canadian author Lawrence Hill. In The Book Of Negroes, describing one woman's 18th-century lifetime, Hill paints a vivid context, collating history into a timeline today's knowledge-seeker can refer to.

The illustrated edition of this book should be in every library near you, though it was controversially re-titled Someone Knows My Name for America and certain other markets. Clearly, that word, Negro, used and abused, carries so much history that it can enter publishing-house boardrooms and reshape itself.

If you're putting off reading this book, or won't go see 12 Years A Slave, then the chances are excellent that you'll never see any of the films which have been pulled together for the 2nd annual staging of the Toronto Black Film Festival this February.

That, in itself, is justification for this focus on Black film. And also why I'll join a TBFF14 discussion panel on screen diversity.

Organisers Fabienne Colas and Emile Castonguay personify the scope of the programming. Inevitably there is copious intersection with non-Black historical and dramatic narratives - 'cos the world works that way.

While the fledgling TBFF14 takes foothold in this big film festival town, miles away they gear up for another. Los Angeles hosts the 22nd annual Pan African Film Festival which twice screens The Skin, a contemporary supernatural thriller from Antigua I appear in, and have previously written about.

Incidentally, February 6th is when we celebrate Bob Marley's birthday. Though, like the relevance of Black/African history,
I must confess, for me it's a year-round ting.

... beneath "The Skin" ...

... they have fangs, suck blood, creepy-crawl or fly by night,

dress in cloaks, sleep by day, shy from crucifixes on sight,

they fascinate us and seem to be everywhere of late,

books... TV... on Halloween they may even appear at your gate ...

... folkloric characters are found in all world cultures and there's a wide variety to choose from in Caribbean societies populated by slave descendants who have commingled African traditional beliefs with those of European origin, resulting in some pretty gruesome geo-specific ghouls ... known collectively in the region as jumbies or duppies ...

... with such a rich heritage of mythical demons it's somewhat surprising that there isn't more overt usage of demonology in modern Caribbean artforms ... such folklore is largely consigned to oral tradition of countryfolk, archives of heritage traditions, underfunded cultural festivals and nostalgic mention ...

... enter one intrepid husband and wife filmmaking team lending their initials to HAMA productions of Antigua ... HAMA developed a feature-film script centred around the drama that ensues when the dormant malevolence of a Soucouyant is aroused, terrorizing residents of the post-colonial tropical isle ... the small but growing local film industry benefits from those of us with experience in the filmworld at large, and on this fourth HAMA effort, it was a rewarding experience to have assisted in the preparation of the two leading players ...

... yours truly, as the sleazy Detective Morgan, along with Jamaica's eminent Carl Bradshaw (The Harder They Come, The Lunatic, Third World Cop) and Britain's Jeff Stewart (The Bill, Dr. Who) as an obeah man and opportunistic yachtie respectively, add weight to a cast of colorful local performers, many gracing the screen for the first time ...

... the result is an entertaining supernatural thriller-with-a-difference entitled The Skin, a reference to the specific habits of the (female evil-entity) Soucouyant, known by variable but similar pronunciations and other names throughout the diasporic carry-beyond (Caribbean) ...

... just as it takes a community to raise a child, so too the processs of making a film, particularly in places where the infrastructure is embryonic ... The Skin benefits from skills brought by Howard University's Professor S. Torriano Berry who held the camera and augmented the crew with his film students eager to combine an island getaway with an on-set practicum ...

... quid pro quo deals, deferred payments and "favoured nations" arrangements to use scenic locations, combine to lift this one off the page ... actual filming was intense but not without its lighter moments to mitigate early mornings and late nights ...

... well received at an incubatory screening for the Caribbean Tales film cognoscenti in Barbados this spring, The Skin was to premiere at last month's Reggae Film Festival in Jamaica but organizational cross-wiring, of the sort that too often undercuts effort in this region, meant that the grand unveiling took place last week in front of an appreciative home crowd in Antigua ...

... things have a way of working out as they properly should - part of the pervasive mysticism that governs life in the Caribbean ...

... riffin' on the RFF ...

... before I saw even a single film, a lone documentary or attended any opening festivity for the fourth, almost-annual Reggae Film Festival I found myself reflecting on poignant personal ironies ...

... a virtual lifetime ago my parents bought their first home together, at the corner of Hamilton and Courtney Drives in Trafalgar Park, Kingston, then a prototype mid-town housing community for upwardly mobile professionals and their young families in post-independence Jamaica ... the street-plan of the enclave provided a convenient corridor between the bustle of New Kingston's Trafalgar Road and the upper-St. Andrew trunk of Hope Road, site of Jamaica House, the Prime Minister's residence and my Prep-School-of-record at Mona ... Hope Road later came to acquire widespread notoriety as the address of Bob Marley's above the line hang-out/residence/studio/museum ...

... twisting fates and tortuous routes can make a mockery of time elapsed, and, the destiny that led me to attend this year's Jamaica Reggae Film Festival served up a no-lose situation which I was not about to ignore, come whatever may ...

... originally advertised for urban Montego Bay in the rural parish of St. James, de riguer chops and changes saw the emergent event flexing a big-city move by taking over Studio 38 on Trafalgar Road ... so, for the second time in recent years I found myself in Kingston to celebrate cinema mere measurements from the stomping grounds of my happy early childhood ...

... festivals of film are artist showcases driven by sponsorships and creative juices, a mercurial admixture at the best of times, and despite the efforts of Barbara Blake-Hannah, the venerable figurehead pulling the strings, scheduling proved vulnerable to the gremlins who govern Murphy's law ... indeed, BBH and the RFF fell short of that magic formula necessary to create the sort of vibe such events rely on when inevitable glitches occur ... until the eleventh-hour(and for some tentative minutes beyond) this festival was set to premiere The Skin, a supernatural thriller set in Antigua, amid a selection of shorts and documentaries with Reggae/Caribbean sensibilities ... to the chagrin of many, this did not manifest ...

... fortunately, involvement in this little-film-that-could was only one of my motivations to grace the music-soaked, cosy-corner of Kingsley Cooper's fashionable venue ... Jamaican actor-icon Carl Bradshaw (also in The Skin) was in attendance of course, and a pleasant meeting with breakout actress Nicole Grey from Storm Saulter's buzzy Jamaican film "Betta Must Come" and Pulse model Jackie (Jaki?) made for keepsake photo-ops ...

... among other attendees I noted were Reggae-ologist Dr. Carolyn Cooper, "Native" Wayne Jobson keeping the pressure on the Peter Tosh pedal, singer/actress Cherine Anderson, the authoritative Mutabaruka, veteran musician Bongo Herman, stalwart JA skipper and Windies cricketer Maurice Foster, Emmy-winning director Mustapha Khan (in Jamaica screening "Rocksteady") and his lead actor Cedric Sanders ...

... the broad appeal of the subject matter (plus pervasive goodwill for this festival's mandate and its erstwhile organizers) means it would be a pity to allow avoidable happenstance to undermine its credibility in the face of a world with so many other attractions on offer and such stiff competition for funding pursestrings ...

... onward and upward ... Selah ...