Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

Grab your popcorn. CTFF About to Open. Annual Filmfest has Snakes on the Brain for Gala Night By Stephen Weir When the  Caribbean Tales Film Festival (CTFF)  opens in a couple weeks, the first film of the annual flickfest will have the audience thinking they have snakes on the brain when the theatre lights come back on.   Rattlesnakes  is a full- length feature that has rattlers not just in the personalities of the principal actors but literally on camera too.  The Canadian debut takes place September 4th, right on College Street in Toronto’s Little Italy.    The film will be feted at the festival’s early evening 2019 kick-off and street party, followed by an 8pm VIP filled screening across the street at the Royal Cinema! This is probably going to be the first movie an audience will ever see where they will see the names of three snakes in the final credits! Slash and Strike don’t get much screen time or any lines to speak, but they d...

Director Idris Elba Lots of Fighting In The Yardie  While Audience Argue Over Jamaican to English Subtitles By Stephen Weir   Yardie, a British/Jamaican action movie directed by superstar actor Idris Elba received its Canadian debut last week at the Royal Cinema in downtown Toronto.   And while the 108-minute feature film was awash with blood and murder, everybody in the sold-out theatre left on their own two feet arguing about the Jamaican to English subtitles. British actor Idris Elba directed the full-length thriller (His first time behind the camera) and brought to Canadian by the Caribbean Tales Film Festival. Made a year ago but shown only briefly in the UK and the US, the Film Festival used this rare showing to introduce to the media the line-up of films for this September’s 2019 Festival. The movie, based on Victor Headly’s best selling Jamaican/British 1992 novel, is an uncompromising look at how a wave of black on black m...

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...

The Trinidadian Name Game: Nang by Nang By Stephen Weir I suggested to award winning Canadian filmmaker Richard Fung that his new documentary about 94-year old Nang could be called Travels with my Trinidadian Aunt. “No!” he said.  “Everyone seems to think that Nang is my aunt, but, even though we are 30-years apart, she is my cousin!” Fung – an award winning Trinidadian born filmmaker and a professor at the OCAD University in downtown Toronto – is premiering his 40-minute documentary  Nang by Nang , next Wednesday evening (September 12) at the Royal Cinema as part of the Caribbean Tales Film Festival.  Nine days later he will be premiering the movie again in Trinidad as part of their Film Festival.  He spoke to me last week about the movie at his home in Toronto.   Fung’s film is the story of his aunt who now lives in the US and how they meet and travelled together back to Trinidad to explore their shared family tree.  The doc...

Nickolai Salcedo readies to climb aboard the world stage for  his role in the new Trini-Canadian flick By Stephen Weir It is not just actor Nickolai Salcedo who is waiting for a bus to arrive.   It is the whole cast and crew of the new Canadian / Trinidadian movie, Hero , that are anxiously wondering when and where their soon-to-be previewed film is going to take them. Salcedo plays Ulric Cross, the famed Trinidadian World War II airman. The Hero is a full-length docudrama that tells the story of the life and times of Cross. He was squadron leader for the Brits and went on after the War to become a jurist and diplomat. His life spanned key events of the 20th Century when independent African and Caribbean nations came of age.   It is all going to happen quickly.   Next week, at the September 5 th gala kick-off of Toronto’s Caribbean Tales Film Festival, Hero will be shown for the very first time.   Salcedo in Bloor St West coffee shop...

Canadian debut at Toronto’s Royal Cinema By Stephen Weir It took four years and a worldwide Kickstarter project for the Jamaica Dance Hall documentary Bruk Out to Break Out in Toronto. On Friday night the movie was given its Canadian premiere to a wildly cheering audience at the downtown Royal Cinema. The Caribbean Camera Bruk Out – starts with the real thing. Men and women dancing in the streets and steamy dance halls of Kingston, Jamaica with reckless abandon.   Men and women flaunt their sexuality, on the dance floor, in the streets of Kingston and even on the hoods of slow moving cars.   Wining? That is too tame for Dance Hall – this is where the term daggering was born. The camera rolls with a clubber’s point of view of the hot hot dancing, while notable dancehall artists including Beenie Man and Elephant Man explain how the music and dancing feed off each other. The 69-minute movie moves from the ghetto to America, Poland and Spain, f...