Brought to you by Caribbean Creativity
How did you get involved in the arts?
My parents always encouraged us – me and
my brothers and sisters
– to express ourselves
creatively, so there was
a very strong artistic
streak embedded in
us at an early age. As a
teenager I started taking
pictures, as in still photography, and around
2000 I moved to LA and
entered the Film Immersion Program of the Los
Angeles Film School.
It was a very hands-on
experience. In between
my school schedule I
worked on music video
sets. I was the hardest
working PA you could
ever meet. I was out to
prove it! One day I met
hip hop video director
Little X, who took me
under his wing. I worked
on a lot of his sets as a
second unit director and
just rolled a lot with him.
At one point I decided to
move to Miami to work
with Joshua Bratter, a
friend of the family who
wanted to invest in my
first feature film. This
seemed a good opportunity, as, after all, I wanted
to make movies! After
a few years I had to go
back to Jamaica to renew
my visa and I realized
I wanted to make films
there. So I decided to
stay and give it all.
How did you set out to
make your ambition to
become a filmmaker in
Jamaica a reality?
My brother Nile also
returned to Jamaica after
finishing film school in
London, so we decided
to pursue our filmmaking passion together. We
also linked up with Joel
Burke, who I already
knew from before. We
just came together and