Jumping right into AnimeCom Fest, JANN had a long list of local animated films to showcase, at least an hour's worth to be exact "Don't quote mi pan dat". The list contained films from both students and professional filmmakers. But let me go back a bit and begin when I arrived at the Chinese Benevolent Association, which is where AnimeCom Fest was hosted.
I was incharge of the showcase on the very first day of the event. Here’s how it began; I drove up to the gate like a boss, and was told that there was no parking left, but that there was additional parking across the road. I turned the car around and went across the road, where I was told that I had to pay $400 to park. I sighed, but because I had a job to do, I paid the fee, parked the car, and walked across the road back to the event.
Going through the gate, I went into a line full of anime lovers who were eager to get into the event. When I got to the front, I gave the good folks in charge of handing out passes my name and my purpose for being there. At this point, I was early and excited to get inside to set up for the showcase. But after searching through the list for what seemed like seconds, my name was nowhere to be found. I was in shock! Not because my name wasn't on the list, but because I realised that I was hungry and had to wait in the sun for someone to come and get me. "An yow, di place did hot star, mi naw go lie".
I was eventually rescued, unfortunately not from hunger but from the sun as I got my pass and headed inside. Now enough of the fillers, let's get back to what you came here for, the Film Showcase! For the first set of films, we were lucky to have the filmmakers there with us, "Big up" to Jenille Brown and GashHuds. The films were entertaining to watch, but "mi naw go lie" I can't remember the names of their specific films because I was busy being entertained by eye candy to focus on the actual titles. The audience was also still awake, which is usually a good sign and both filmmakers had the opportunity to answer a few questions about their films.
The next set of films was student films. The ones that got the most reaction based on what I observed while falling asleep, I mean while observing the audience keenly and doing my job diligently, were, "I am Bot" directed by Chloe Campbell, which is a story about a girl and a robot in a post-apocalyptic Jamaica, "River Muma" by Renee Ross and Jheddalie Wilkie, which tells the story of Stacy's mom which has it going on... No wait! Apologies wrong film, "River Muma" is the story of a mermaid and a young man whose lives are connected in some way. "Dare to Dream" by Aljae Brown which is a story about a young man finding success in doing what he loves, also got a few smiles and nods of approval.
After the student films came the heavyweights. Now I'm going to continue the trend of focusing on the ones that grabbed the audience's attention. First up is "Agwe" by Ina Sotirova. This is a film about a young priestess that must overcome her insecurities, defy tradition and step into her power to save her people from impending danger. "Mi copy dat straight from the IMDB page, so if it nuh correct, don't blame mi". Then there's "Abeeku and the Maroons" directed by some guy named Kevin Jackson, who's apparently also the President of JANN. Which is the abbreviation for "Jamaica and New Naan Bread". This is only my opinion on what I think it means, of course, it could be because I'm hungry, but I'll ask him the next time I see him. The audience did seem to appreciate both films as they fit the demographic of the Anime Com audience.
The film playlist was repeated about three times with some audience members leaving and a few coming in with each playback. I'm happy to say that the room was never empty and the overall reception was a positive one. Now because of legal reasons, I have to say that I was not forced to write this article, I wrote it of my own volition and the President of the Jamaica Animation Nation Network did not manipulate, coerce or threaten to fire me if I did not share my thoughts on the AnimeCom Fest film showcase.
