Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

Hope the other festivals won’t get into a tiff over Yardie's Canadian premiere tonight in Toronto thanks to Caribbean Tales Festival First time director Idris Elba By Stephen Weir Don’t tell TIFF but The Caribbean Tales Film Festival (CTFF) has scored a big one! Thursday night – July 4th - the CTFF is showing Yardie at the downtown Royal Cinema. This is the Canadian debut for a feature length thriller that was directed by British film star Idris Elba. “We tried for it last year, but, they wanted to make a big splash and tie Yardie into a screening with a distributor, it never happened” explained Dianne Webley Co-Director of the CTFF. “We continued to push to get the movie for Toronto and a year later here we are having the Canadian premier at the Royal Cinema this evening (Thursday July 4th). We are using the showing to introduce the line-up of films for this year’s Festival, so Yardie will get a terrific splash!’ The movie’s plot takes viewers from Jamaica to E...

Best all Trini movie you will never see in a Canadian theatre By Stephen Weir for Caribbean Camera Chances are if you went to school in Trinidad you have read and studied Michael Anthony’s  Green Days By The River . If you haven’t read the classic Trinidadian novel there is a new made-in-T&T movie that faithfully tells the story of coming of age for a poor young man in the  coastal village of Mayaro  in 1952. The book, first published in 1967, is considered one of Trinidad’s most important post colonial novels and Michael Anthony one of the most important living authors (he is listed as one of the 50 most  influential people in Trinidad and Tobago ).    Now his masterpiece is a movie, and late last week, film junkies got to see the feature film for maybe the first and last time in Canada at a media screening in Toronto. Michael Mooledhar, a Trinidadian born film maker put together a 100% T&T cast and crew to make Green Days By th...

Caribbean Tales In The North. TIFF Owns The South . When it comes to the downtown Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and the College Street Caribbean Tales Film Festival , (CTFF) it is the Two Solitudes of the movie world. TIFF has the Big Names, the Big Movies and a Big Army of volunteers to make sure that the ticket holders stay off the red carpets and out of the VIP parties.  At CTFF, the actors, actresses, directors and crew are in-your-face minglers and if there was a red carpet they would be dragging movie fans onside to whine with them! Jacinth Sutphin at the Dip Case in point. Last Thursday the CTFF kicked off with a beer and pizza gala at the Cafe Diplomatico (aka the Dip ) on College Street just steps from the Royal Theatre (festival home).   Actors and actresses who are household names to Trinidadians and Jamaicans but unknown in Canada, were so willing to pose with fans, the Caribbean Media, and one lone CBC reporter, the sel...