Since the inception of WeBeat St James Live in 2001, this year will be the first occasion on which the festival will be staged without its chairman, Earl Cros­by, who passed away in August 2016.

“It is a strange feeling to be plan­ning this year’s event without Earl,” said long-standing WeBeat commit­tee member Angela Fox. “The fes­tival’s success over the years was large­ly due to his untiring ef­forts, and res­olute willingness to forge ahead, despite the many challenges he faced during that time. So we are doing this year’s activities in his honour, even though the problems are still there.”

Crosby, who had undergone se­rious health issues a few months before last year’s staging, had this to say at the opening: “Because of my health condition, members of the committee undertook all responsi­bility for producing this year’s event, and faced even greater challenges than in past years in getting sponsors to buy into this programme that has proven its worth for over 15 years.”

The WeBeat St James Live festi­val was developed to promote the community of St James which, due to its all-day, all-night activities, is dubbed the “city that never sleeps.” The festival provides a platform to showcase the talents of local artistes while highlighting the contribution of people who have been pivotal in the development of St James and, by extension, the wider community. A most apt phrase to describe this fes­tival is ‘collective responsibility’ for within the perimeter of the rhyth­mic, are the social responsibilies of health, environment, and rewards.

The award-winning film God Loves the Fighter, a gritty urban drama by US-based, Trinidad and Tobago-born filmmaker Damian Marcano, will screen at We Beat’s We Film Night on Tuesday—in tribute to the late Earl Crosby.

The free screening, at the St James Amphitheatre, is presented by the Trinidad+Tobago Film Festival (TTFF).

Hailed for its “non-conformist and thrilling voice” by the UK’s Candid magazine and for its “slick cinematography” by film magazine Variety, God Loves the Fighter played to sold-out audiences at the TTFF 2013 where it won the People’s Choice Award and the Best Local Feature Award. It also went on to win the 2014 Yellow Robin Award at the Curaçao International Film Festival Rotterdam, among others.

The award-winning film God Loves the Fighter, a gritty, urban drama by US-based, TT-born filmmaker Damian Marcano, will screen at We Beat’s We Film Night on Tuesday, June 6 at 7pm in tribute to the late Earl Crosby. The free screening, at the St James Amphitheatre, is presented by the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff), courtesy its sponsor, Flow.

Hailed for its “non-conformist and thrilling voice”  by the UK’s Candid magazine and for its “slick cinematography” by the film magazine, Variety, God Loves the Fighter, played to sold out audiences at the ttff 2013, where it won the People’s Choice Award and the Best Local Feature Award.

It also went on to win the 2014 Yellow Robin Award at the Curaçao International Film Festival Rotterdam among others.

God Loves the Fighter tells the story of Charlie, a young man seeking to make ends meet on the streets of Port of Spain. Reluctantly, he takes a job from a gang leader as assistant to a drug courier. As he becomes entangled in a web of deceit, the ripple effects are felt across the city, complicating his attempts  at redemption.

Shot during the 2011 State of Emergency,  in an urgent and unflinching style, God Loves the Fighter was Marcano’s debut feature film. A Trinidadian who grew up in Morvant, Marcano moved to America at age 12, later enrolling as a pre-med student at Ohio State University, before moving to New York to become a web design programmer.