OMG Digital Magazine OMG Issue 275 7th September 2017 | Page 27

OMG Digital Magazine | 275 | Thursday 7 September 2017 • PAGE 27
Synopsis
In a remote village in 1952 Trinidad, a curious boy
pursues the affection of two girls. Despite his ailing
father’s advice, Shell follows the compassionate Mr.
Gidharee to work on his plantation along the river,
in hopes of attracting his daughter Rosalie, but then
falls for Joan, a sweet, sensible girl from the city. From
the love triangle that ensues, Shell learns bittersweet
lessons of life and love that will define his manhood and
future forever.
About the Director Michael Mooleedhar
Michael Mooleedhar has a BA in film and an MA
in creative design and entrepreneurship from the
University of the West Indies, St Augustine. He has made
a number of experimental short films, documentaries,
and music videos. His films Coolie Pink and Green and
City on the Hill won the People’s Choice awards at the
ttff/09 and the ttff/15 respectively. Green Days by the
River is his debut as a feature-film director and is being
screened at the ttff/17.
How GDBTR (2017) came about...
The film started in Oct of 2014 after I had reconnected
with old friend and fellow classmate from UWI film
program, Michael Mooleedhar. With experience doing
narrative shorts and feature documentaries, we were
both at the same point looking to do our first narrative
feature film and we decided to work together even
before knowing what project we would pursue. We had
a slate of projects to consider, and fortunately the script
for ‘Green Days by the River’ was written already by
Dawn Cumberbatch.
A full first draft of the script already written meant that
we were ahead in the development process, and it was
just a matter of doing developmental rewrites to make
the final draft as strong as possible. Additionally, the
strong Intellectual Property that is ‘Green Days by the
River’ the book, was also a major factor. Our efforts to
make this film had an existing market that have loved
and read the book since 1967. Lastly, the story of Green
Days is a simple yet complex character driven story.
It represented a pure innocent time in our culture
and glimpse into our history that was so beautifully
put into the literary fabric of Caribbean stories by the
author Michael Anthony. We hope to extend that legacy
through the film that hopefully would resonate with
audiences throughout the region.