Staff WriterBrooklyn, New York— Two of the Caribbean’s most acclaimed novelists and screenwriters will be feted at the 3rd Caribbean Classic Stage & Screen Series, April 15 – 21. Edward R. Braithwaite, the genius behind the 1960’s film classic To Sir, with Love featuring Sidney Poitier, and Anthony C. Winkler, the enigmatic creator of The Annihilation of Fish with James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave, will be special guests at this celebration of the artistry of some of the Caribbean’s most illustrious wordsmiths from the last century.
Edward R. Braithwaite, a veteran Royal Air Force World War II pilot, and former diplomat is best known for his stories of social conditions and racial discrimination against black people. His first and most popular novel, To Sir, With Love was followed by Paid Servant, A Kind Of Homecoming, Choice of Straws, Reluctant Neighbors, and Honorary White.
Anthony C. Winkler is the author or co-author of many college textbooks on rhetoric and English grammar that are widely used in American colleges and universities. His first novel, The Painted Canoe received critical acclaim. This was followed by The Lunatic, The Great Yacht Race, Going Home to Teach, The Duppy, along with a short story collection The Annihilation of Fish and Other Stories.
This year’s program follows on the heels of last year’s entertaining and insightful retrospective of the work of groundbreaking Jamaican playwright and screenwriter Trevor Rhone. Mr. Rhone is best known in the United States for co-writing the internationally acclaimed film The Harder They Come.
Produced by the Brooklyn, NY based Caribbean Cultural Theatre, the 2007 staging of the Caribbean Classic Stage & Screen Series is a mix of film screenings, readings and panel discussions, and will examine the Caribbean experience as depicted in film adaptations of Caribbean literary texts.
The Series kicks-off at St Francis College, 180 Remsen Street, Downtown Brooklyn on Wednesday, April 4 with provocative docudramas inspired by the work of Guyanese-British poet Grace Nichols and Jamaican women’s ensemble Sistren Theater Collective. On Sunday, April 15, the prophetic lyricism of late Guyanese poet laureate, Martin Carter, forms the backdrop for a chilling look at post-colonial societies in The Terror and the Time at the Flatbush Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, 22 Linden Boulevard, Brooklyn, NY.
The program returns to St Francis College on Friday, April 20 and Saturday April 21, with The formal opening of the film series, on April 20 will pay homage to the memory of actor/comedian Charles Hyatt (High Winds in Jamaica; Cool Runnings) and filmmaker Perry Henzell (The Harder They Come). The centerpiece of the weekend will feature screenings of Braithwaite’s To Sir, with Love, and Winkler’s The Annihilation of Fish and The Lunatic. Other scheduled screen gems include the highly entertaining The Mystic Masseur from Nobel Laureate, V. S Naipaul, and two contrasting interpretations form Caribbean and non-Caribbean perspectives, of Dominican novelist’s Jean Rhys post-slavery classic, Wide Sargasso Sea.
Two discussion programs on the challenges and expectations of fashioning a Caribbean identity in literature and film will be held in Queens and Brooklyn on Wednesday, April 18,. At 3pm the Office of the Provost of St John’s University hosts “Turning Pages – Caribbean cultural identity on page and screen. A conversation with renowned pioneering Caribbean novelists Edward R. Braithwaite, Ph. D., and Anthony C. Winkler”. Later that evening, at 7pm, the program repeats at the Central Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, and hosted by the Caribbean Literary & Cultural Center.
Mr. Winkler will also be taking part in two book-signing events in Manhattan for his latest novel, Dog War. The first, a reception for the US launch of Dog War on Thursday, April 19, is under the patronage of the Hon. Dr. Basil K. Bryan, Consul General of Jamaica in New York at the Consulate, 767 3rd Avenue. The second is a book signing and reading at Hu-man Bookstore, 2319 Frederick Douglas Boulevard.
Information on the Caribbean Classic Stage & Screen Series can be gotten by calling the Caribbean Cultural Theatre at 718-783-8345. Presenting partners for the series include Akashic Book Publishers, American Foundation of the University of the West Indies, Banana Boat Productions, Caribbean Literary & Cultural Center- Brooklyn Public Library, Consulate General of Jamaica, Date with a Book, Guyana Cultural Association, Hu-man Bookstore & Café, Jamaica Information Service; Queens College of Guyana Alumni Association (NY).
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Wednesday, April 18 @ 6.30 pm Reading/Discussion
Central Branch – Brooklyn Public Library, Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY
Turning Pages – Caribbean cultural identity on page and screen
A conversation with renowned pioneering Caribbean novelists Edward R. Braithwaite (To Sir, with Love) and Anthony C. Winkler (The Annihilation of Fish and The Lunatic)
Presented in association with Brooklyn Public Library and the Caribbean Literary & Cultural Center
Thursday, April 19 @ 6:30pm Book Launch/Reading
Consulate General of Jamaica, 767 3rd Avenue, New York, NY
Anthony C. Winkler reads from his most recently published novel Dog War. Discussion follows.
Presented in association with Akashic Books, American Foundation of the University of the West Indies, Consulate General of Jamaica, Date with a Book, and Jamaica Information Service
Friday, April 20 @ 6pm Book Signing/Reading
Hu-man Bookstore & Café, 2319 Frederick Douglas Boulevard, New York, NY
Anthony C. Winkler reads from his most recently published novel Dog War. Discussion follows.
Presented in association with Akashic Books, Date with a Book, and Hu-man Bookstore & Café
Friday, April 20
St Francis College, Founders Hall, 180 Remsen Street, Downtown Brooklyn, NY
7pm
Opening Ceremony with Tribute to Charles Hyatt (actor) and Perry Henzell (filmmaker)
8pm
To Sir With Love (1967) from a novel by Edward R. Braithwaite
Directed by James Clavell. Featuring: Sidney Poitier, Christian Roberts; Lulu
This timeless classic with it’s mix of 1960’s edginess and nods to race and class, is the school movie against which all other school movies are measured. Engineer Mark Thackeray arrives to teach a totally undisciplined class at an East End school. He starts implementing his own brand of classroom discipline: forcing the pupils to treat each other with respect. Inevitably he begins getting involved in the students’ personal lives, and must avoid the advances of an amorous student while winning over the class tough.
Saturday, April 21
St Francis College, Founders Hall, 180 Remsen Street, Downtown Brooklyn, NY
2pm
Wide Sargasso Sea
Based on a novel by from a novel by Jean Rhys
Named one of TIME® Magazine’s ‘All TIME Best Novels’, the 1966 novel acts as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s famous 1847 novel Jane Eyre. Set on the island of Jamaica in 1844, amidst the political upheaval brought about by slavery’s abolition, Wide Sargasso Sea is considered both a feminist masterpiece, and insightful in terms of its exploration of the European attitude toward race. The book has spawned a number of adaptations for both stage and screen. Two such interpretations will be presented to examine the treatment of the text by Caribbean and non-Caribbean filmmakers. A 1993 Anglo-Australian production directed by John Duigan will be followed by 1995 production by Banyan Productions of Trinidad & Tobago and directed by Michael Gilkes.
Discussion follows.
5pm
The Mystic Masseur (2001)
Directed by Ismail Merchant. Based on a novel by Nobel Laureate, V. S Naipaul.
An enthusiastic young man in Trinidad in the 1940s rises to local fame after leaving a teaching post in the capital to live in his father’s village where he writes books and takes up his father’s trade as a masseur. Showmanship informs his innocent exuberance to make him “mystic.” He’s Ganesh, a Trinidadian of Indian descent, called The Pundit by his followers, who with Leela, his childless wife, ascends to success in a flashback that begins in Oxford in 1954 when a student volunteers to give a day’s guided tour to a visiting West Indian.
7pm
Annihilation of Fish (1999)
Directed by Charles Burnett. Based on a novel by Anthony C. Winkler
Everyone needs a focus in life; something that gives meaning and purpose to their existence. For Fish (James Earl Jones), what could be more useful than keeping the devil at bay from an unsuspecting world? The very proper, dignified and rather formal Jamaican man fearlessly wrestles an imaginary demon, ennobling himself through his fantasy. For Poinsettia (Lynn Redgrave), it’s finding the perfect lover that would justify her life.
Discussion follows.
9pm
The Lunatic (1991)
Directed by Lol Crème. Based on a novel by Anthony C. Winkler.
Aloysius (Paul Campbell) is a sweet-natured idiot who spends most of his time in a small Jamaican town talking to trees and animals. In fact, his best friend is a giant limbed tree, sleeping under its branches at night. Problems begin with the arrival of a sex-crazed German tourist named Inga (Julie T. Wallace), who enlists Aloysius as a guide and erotic slave.
Presented in association with Banana Boat Productions, Guyana Cultural Association, Date with a Book, and Queens College of Guyana Alumni Association (NY)
Caribbean Cultural Theatre
138 So Oxford Street, Suite 4A
Brooklyn, NY 11217-1695
TEL: 718-783-8345
FAX: 718-398-2794
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