Remembering my friend Danielle

BORN AUGUST 18, 1965, television and film producer, director and writer Danielle Dieffenthaller’s accolades are everywhere.

Danielle began her career at TTT in News and then in the Drama Production Department. Her early years were as a production assistant for No Boundaries. While at the production house Banyan Ltd, she was half of the only crew to record footage during the 1990 attempted coup.

She was the brilliance behind the legendary hundred-episode, six-season series Westwood Park (1997-2004). She pioneered the environmental series, Ecowatch, and early iconic music videos for Machel Montano and Xtatik’s Big Truck and 3 Canal's Blue, plus a long list of local and regional programmes. Under her production company, Diefferent Style Flims, Danielle developed, co-wrote, produced and directed the one-season but popular soap opera, The Reef.

She started careers in the creative sector, providing opportunities and a sense of possibility. Bocas Lit Fest recognised the “patience, care, and passion” that defined her workshops in their youth programme. Beyond that, endless people describe her generosity in sharing her experience with writing proposals, getting investors and grant funding, finding distributors, and sourcing film crew.

In 2019, she was recognised as the Arts and Letters Laureate of the Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Awards for Excellence for her contributions to the region's film industry.

In a 2018 interview, she talked about her vision for the eight-part television series, Plain Sight. She dreamed of “putting a face and soul to people whether they are villains or heroes,” to help us understand each other. She believed in telling our stories with fearless honesty. She wanted film in Trinidad and Tobago to be all that we were capable of and deserved – all that we need.

There is all this and more to know of her work and dreams, but there is also Danielle, my friend, who loved the bush and hiking, who loved rivers and waterfalls, who loved a sea bath, and who would readily jump in her jeep and drive to the ends of TT with her daughter and son, Xica and Maximillian, as her closest companions. From Los Iros to Castara, the woman loved an adventure.

She was one of those bustling about backstage at Lilliput Children’s Theatre shows, ever-present with her children. She loved Jouvay (J'Ouvert), and brought Xica and Max with her on the road as she played in 3 Canal, knowing that they were entirely surrounded by a community which would keep them safe as she showed them the TT that mattered to her. Just as much, she loved Phagwa, and would head down to the Hindu Prachar Kendra, carrying her children with her for one life experience after another. She was a fierce mother and we all knew they were her everything.

Dani was no woman to go peacefully into any night. She could tell an uproarious story. She was tough as a battle axe and feisty with cuss. And there was a lot to cuss about – from the “torture” of these past seven years to the lack of funding to finish her long-dreamed series. Incredibly generous, she loved her friends and community. And she was well loved. Indeed, over the last years, her community of nightingale warrior women and her children, and family support, was life itself.

Danielle was diagnosed with renal failure in 2018 and, later, faced related health challenges. She undertook dialysis while hoping for a kidney transplant through the public healthcare system.

The Ministry of Health has a National Organ Transplant Unit (NOTU), but Dani suffered from delays, setbacks, and lack of supplies even when she found donors. She, like others who might have still been with us today, would have benefited from, at the very least, a nationwide deceased donor transplant list which assumes that people consent to having their organs donated after their death unless they or their family say otherwise, or includes their consent on driver's licences and ID cards. A national campaign to get buy-in and to ensure the unit and its doctors do better at saving more lives would honour her more than accolades.

The last time we met, a week earlier than her passing on Saturday, November 22, we remembered some of our favourite adventures – Balandra, Toco, Grand Rivere, Matura, Paria, Covinge, Madamas, Tompire, Las Cuevas, and Yarra.

All the times that I miss her, I will imagine her bold spirit in such beloved places, full of the bliss she found in their salt, sunlight, wind, and water.

Diary of a mothering worker

Entry 569

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