She Paradise to premiere at MovieTowne

Following its world premiere at the AFI Festival and successful screenings at Tribeca Film Festival and BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) among others, She Paradise will have its homecoming premiere at MovieTowne, Port of Spain and San Fernando, on April 25.

Directed by Trinidad and Tobago filmmaker Maya Cozier, She Paradise is a coming-of-age story that follows Sparkle as she joins a soca dance group and finds an opportunity for friendship and escape, said a media release.

Cozier said in the release that festival audiences fell in love and empathised with the main character. "(They) fell in love with the sisterhood. What really struck the most was that everyone that I spoke to said that they were rooting for the lead character and that they empathised with Sparkle and connected with her story and really wanted to follow her throughout,” the release quotes her as saying in a recent interview.

She Paradise received crucial seed funding in Trinidad from the Take One Feature Film Grant, a programme of then Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts.

Reviewed on the film industry website, The Playlist, writer Robert Daniels noted She Paradise is a love letter not only to the autonomy of a young, black woman but the culture of a proud island nation, too.”

The film will run at MovieTowne venues until May 5. This is Filmco’s third theatrical release, which forms a core element of the organisation’s distribution offering, the release said.

For more info: contact Mikayla at distribution@filmco.org