Couva East takes Shooting Stars top prize

COUVA East Secondary School took the Shooting Stars Award for best film at the prize-giving function held at MovieTowne on Wednesday.

As part of ongoing efforts to support and develop a national film industry, The National Gas Company (NGC) entered into a partnership with the TT Film Festival (TTFF) for a three-year film-development programme, Shooting Stars, for secondary school students.

Four secondary schools were selected to participate in the programme: San Juan North Secondary, Couva East Secondary, Holy Faith Convent, Penal and Signal Hill Secondary School, Tobago.

Addressing the students before the four short films were aired and results announced, was Myles Lewis, Head Corporate Social Responsibility at NGC, who told them, “Film-makers can potentially reach more captive audiences than other storytellers. The stories they tell, the messages they convey, often travel further. For this reason, that is the comparative advantage that films have over other communication media. It is almost a responsibility of filmmakers to use their movies to share ideas and messages that need to be heard.”

He said today’s issues such as substance use and abuse, self-harm, school violence, bullying, discrimination and mental health, need more ventilation in media because these are challenges that urge attention and action, especially among the youth of the nation.”

Lewis said it is one of the reasons why NGC was happy to support the competition.

Over the past few months, students were not only mentored in the art of film-scripting, production and editing, but they were exposed to the various social issues facing youth – issues that needed to be ventilated and translated to the screen.

Lewis congratulated all the participants, telling them, “Your hard work is evidenced by the quality of each film. You all performed exceptionally and are indeed stars. Take from this experience everything you can. Even if your career in film making stops here, the ability to tell a story effectively is a valuable skill in any profession that demands communication.”

Couva East Secondary’s film Tainted Reality had pores raised and tear-filled eyes in the cinema, so real was the acting and the reality of the storyline. None at the awards ceremony could have doubted the school taking the top prize.

The closing scene of a son dying after defending his mom from his violent dad was most touching.

The students and teacher, Natasha Chaitram, worked with film mentor Siobhan Millette. The other films, like the winning one, all tackled burning issues of the day. Also, they were all done at a standard far exceeding what was expected, with credit going to the actors, drama teachers and mentors.

Mentor Juliette Crawley and teacher Denise Hamid worked with San Juan North Secondary students and their film Simon’s Choice, while mentor Dave Elliott and teacher Garnett Lawrence assisted Signal Hill’s students with their production Choosing Destiny, and mentor Avinash Phagoo, together with teacher Leekeesha Duncan worked with Holy Faith students and their film Woe Be Gone.

On hand to witness the inaugural NGC Shooting Stars prize-giving ceremony was founder of the ttff, Bruce Paddington, whose pleasure showed after the airing of the films.

He even dubbed Cornel Shade, who took away the prize for the best actor, “a star in the making.”

Holy Name also received the prize for Best Original Score.