Presentation Title
Nobody's Diaspora? Africa in the Moving Picture Memory of the Caribbean
Abstract
Christopher Laird, has been a teacher, published the arts journal Kairi, and ran a theatre in Port of Spain Trinidad during the 1970s. He has produced over 200 documentaries, dramas, and other video productions with Banyan Ltd. over the past 40 years, garnering a score of national, regional, and international awards, including Trinidad & Tobago National Media Awards Best Documentary for Crossing Over (a co-production with the National Film & Television Institute in Ghana). Crossing Over also won Best Video Documentary at the 2nd Caribbean Film Festival in Martinique in 1990.
In 2009 Laird was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Caribbean Tales Film and Video festival in Toronto, Canada. In 2013 His feature film No Bois Man No Fraid was nominated for the Best Diaspora Documentary at the African Film Academy Awards.
Laird has been Managing Director of Banyan Ltd. for the past 30 years and has overseen the establishment of the world’s largest collection of Caribbean culture on video in the Caribbean Film and Video Archive. In 2003 he founded, with Errol Fabien, the region’s first all Caribbean free to air television station, Gayelle. In 2009 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of the West Indies and served as Chairman of the Board of the Trinidad & Tobago Film Company between 2010 and 2014.
Laird will be discussing Caribbean culture in conjunction with the release of a digitized archive of Banyan's productions, a significant collection that documents the historical, cultural, social, political, and folk events in the Caribbean. This collection/ record of the Caribbean world is unsurpassed and his role in its creation is central.
Start Date
12-2-2017 12:00 PM
End Date
12-2-2017 1:25 PM
Nobody's Diaspora? Africa in the Moving Picture Memory of the Caribbean
Christopher Laird, has been a teacher, published the arts journal Kairi, and ran a theatre in Port of Spain Trinidad during the 1970s. He has produced over 200 documentaries, dramas, and other video productions with Banyan Ltd. over the past 40 years, garnering a score of national, regional, and international awards, including Trinidad & Tobago National Media Awards Best Documentary for Crossing Over (a co-production with the National Film & Television Institute in Ghana). Crossing Over also won Best Video Documentary at the 2nd Caribbean Film Festival in Martinique in 1990.
In 2009 Laird was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Caribbean Tales Film and Video festival in Toronto, Canada. In 2013 His feature film No Bois Man No Fraid was nominated for the Best Diaspora Documentary at the African Film Academy Awards.
Laird has been Managing Director of Banyan Ltd. for the past 30 years and has overseen the establishment of the world’s largest collection of Caribbean culture on video in the Caribbean Film and Video Archive. In 2003 he founded, with Errol Fabien, the region’s first all Caribbean free to air television station, Gayelle. In 2009 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of the West Indies and served as Chairman of the Board of the Trinidad & Tobago Film Company between 2010 and 2014.
Laird will be discussing Caribbean culture in conjunction with the release of a digitized archive of Banyan's productions, a significant collection that documents the historical, cultural, social, political, and folk events in the Caribbean. This collection/ record of the Caribbean world is unsurpassed and his role in its creation is central.