Local filmmakers set to shine at festival
CayFilm director Tony Mark at last year’s festival
(CNS Local Life): CayFilm, the Cayman International Film Festival, this year will be showcasing 20 local productions along with entries from 50 other countries. Set for 30 June-3 July, this marks the third anniversary of the event, and festival director Tony Mark said he was “honoured” to be showing so many domestically produced films.
“We are honoured to be able to screen these homemade films at our festival, and we thank the filmmakers for entrusting us with their creations,” he said in a press release.
“I hope that the Cayman public will come out and support our local talent, and that CayFilm will provide new opportunities for the filmmakers.”
Six of the films will be vying for the Frank E. Flowers Local Filmmaker Award which was introduced last year and presented by Flowers:
Trevor Murphy has two films in the festival this year, Hotel and Reunion, both nominated for the local filmmaker award. The latter is a completely improvised short film. It was shot with the actors each having a secret that they had not shared with one another but each secret is revealed over the course of the weekend as the film is being shot.
Malcolm Ellis, director of last year’s crowd favourite Tripping Through, is returning to CayFilm this year with the short film psychological thriller, Sacrifice, which is up for the award as well. The film explores an abused wife who is struggling to remember an incident involving her husband and the psychiatrist trying to help her.
The winner of the 2016 Young Image Maker’s award, Grace Ruby, returns with her nominated documentary short, Nikki’s Voice. The film follows Nikki Christian and Grace’s father, Scott Ruby – the first duo team in the Cayman Islands – on their journey through a gruelling race in Cayman.
Harris was born and raised in Cayman, and began her entertainment career working on Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games while earning her undergraduate degree at New York University. Since then she has worked with various global youth entertainment labels.
Harris is studying directing at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and is an active member of BAFTA’s Newcomers Program.
Pascal Pernix’s film, Unwritten, also a nominee, follows a best-selling author who discovers that his unknown daughter has begun a journey to meet him for the first time. Unwritten has been doing well on the festival circuit.
“As a dad of two young daughters, I truly am passionate about the complexity of the daughter/father relationships, and I found myself writing quite a bit about it until Unwritten came to life,” Pernix said.
Also being screened is A Plastic Ocean, an adventure documentary shot on more than 20 locations over the past four years. Explorers Craig Leeson and Tanya Streeter and a team of international scientists reveal the causes and consequences of plastic pollution and share solutions. Streeter is a British-Caymanian-American world champion free diver who was inducted into the Women Diver’s Hall of Fame in March 2000.
Other local films screening at CayFilm include Flawless Victory, Metamorphosis – The Great Transformation and Outside the Lines.
CayFilm features daily film screenings, question-and-answer sessions with filmmakers, panel discussions, workshops, an exclusive premiere screening, a celebrity gala event and an awards ceremony.
Tickets are available at Cathy Church’s Photo Centre and through the CayFilm website
Category: Film
