This year’s St. Patrick’s Festival is special in many ways. We are now half-way through the festival and the days are becoming even more busy. We hope you will take some time to pause and take in two films premiering this weekend which feature the beauty and stories of our people.
There will be three FREE community screenings of a documentary dedicated to the island of Montserrat. The film, No Island Like Home, was created by Giulio Gobbetti and Jan Stöckel during their stay on Montserrat in 2017. Giulio and Jan are freelance filmmakers who have a passion for exploration and sharing cultures. This documentary is a celebration of the Montserrat experience and has been premiered at the Docfeed Film Festival in the Netherlands, where it was sold out.
The team is now on Montserrat and will show their documentary:
- SAT 14th of March, 6:30PM at the Montserrat National Trust
- SUN 15th of March, 9PM at the Cultural Centre (Auditorium)
- MON 16th of March, 4PM at the Cultural Centre (Conference Room)
The team will then brings Montserrat with them to the Arctic FIlm Festival in Svalbard.
Learn more about this film on Facebook @noislandfilm
“No Island Like Home is about the island and its people,” Gobbetti said. “We talk about the volcano, but the focus is more on how people maintained a strong community that can find creative solutions to its problems. We tried to portray a lot of different aspects of the island: in the documentary we have some calypso music, we spent time filming at ZJB, we witnessed St. Patrick’s Festival, we did some hiking, hunting, and we filmed in Plymouth and at the MVO.
“When we came to Montserrat, we quickly realized how much people here love their island, and that is the real core of the film. Even people that left, before or after the volcano, still maintain a strong connection to Montserrat. This strong connection – Montserrat being ‘home’, is what led us to this title,” Stöckel added.
“During the journey of making the documentary we met many local people, and several of them ended up being part of the film.” The documentary features the following people, in order of appearance. Rod Stewart, Herman Francis (Cupid), Averna Celeste and Anthony, Winston Cabey (Kafu), Gregory Chances (Reds), Jah Soldier, Rose Willock, Nicolas Tirard, Dr Mike Pienkowski, Philemon Murraine (Mappie), Immortal Don (Ziki), Tahj Hurtault, Bernie Irish, Deebzlenuz, George Piper (JGP), and the Plymouth Reconstruction Project (4th Dymension)
“No Island Like Home is our passion project. It is entirely self-funded, but we loved the island so much that we knew we had to make this film, no matter what,” Stöckel shared.
Benh Zeitlin’s Wendy will have its Green Carpet screening on Sunday, March 15 at the Montserrat Cultural Centre. Expected to be in attendance are the two lead characters who play Wendy and Peter Pan. Zeitlin, said he is happy that he could bring the film back to Montserrat after the seven-year journey. Wendy is the director’s re-imagining of the story of Peter Pan, who takes Wendy and her siblings to Neverland which looks a lot like Montserrat. The children must learn how not to worry so they can stay young forever. Several residents of the island and the Soufriere Hills Volcano make an appearance in the film.
A bus service is being organised to bring those who want to see the film to the screenings. More information will be available on the local radio station ZJB. For anyone interested in learning about the making of the film and movie directing, Zeitlin will do Q&A after the premiere and also at the Monday screenings (See flyer for details).
Both movies will be shown free of charge.
Watch the Wendy and No Island Like Home trailers below
No Island Like Home – Documentary Trailer from Big Hair Films on Vimeo.
