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Acclaimed Canadian writer, director and producer Clement Virgo will be the facilitator for the RBC Focus: Filmmakers’ Immersion, to be held at the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) 2014.
Born in Jamaica, Virgo migrated to Canada at age eleven. He is the director of four feature films, including the boxing drama Poor Boy’s Game, starring Danny Glover, which world-premiered at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival and was a ttff/08 selection. He has also directed a made-for-television movie and episodes of The Wire, The L Word and Soul Food.
In early 2014 Virgo directed a screen adaptation of the bestselling novel The Book of Negroes. The six-part miniseries, which stars Lou Gossett Jr and Cuba Gooding Jr among others, will air in the USA and Canada in early 2015.
Since 2010, Virgo has also presented a series of intimate annual talks to celebrate Black History Month in Toronto with such notable guests as Lee Daniels, Spike Lee, Pam Grier, John Singleton and Chris Rock.
Now in its fourth year, RBC Focus: Filmmakers’ Immersion is an intensive development programme for ten selected emerging filmmakers from the Caribbean and its diaspora.
Each filmmaker enters the programme with a concept for a feature-length narrative film, from which they will be expected to develop a detailed treatment.
At the end of Focus, the top five participants as decided by the facilitators will be chosen. These five participants will be given an opportunity during the ttff/13 to pitch their project to a jury.
The participant with the best project and pitch, as determined by the jury, will win a cash prize of TT$20,000.
Focus takes place from 23–26 September. The ttff/14 runs from 16–30 September.
