Mas
Man, a film about artist-designer Peter Minshall, produced and directed by
Dalton Narine, won the Long Beach International Film Festival prize (http://www.longbeachindie.com) for Best Feature
Documentary on Oct. 11, in Long Beach, a city in Los Angeles County.
Dr.
Daniel Walker, scholar, filmmaker and founding director of the illustrious
festival, spoke about the film’s appeal and the jury’s decision.
“As a
person who wrote a book about the political dimensions of festivals in Cuba and
New Orleans, I know I had a high bar to impress, and the film did all that and
more.”
A few
weeks earlier, Narine had hoped Mas Man would fare well at the Fine Arts Film
Festival in Venice, Los Angeles. “The film drew enthusiastic appraisal from the
audience,” Festival director Juri Koll said.
 |
| Dalton Narine, producer/director, Mas Man, wins Long Beach International Film Festival Best Documentary prize, the film’s 15th award |
“Mas
Man is, above all, a fine arts film,” Narine says, “though juries at fifty or
so festivals around the world, had promoted it in every category imaginable.”
Still,
with the film’s latest success, coupled with the tourism prize it received at
Document Arts Fest in Bucharest, Romania (as well as its screening in Cannes)
both in the past year, Mas Man has amassed 15 prizes across the board. They
include Best Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography and special awards.
Narine
says he pushed the film in the Los Angeles area because Don Mischer, a
Hollywood producer featured in the film, was a key figure in tapping Minshall,
the masman himself, for the Barcelona Olympic Games’ opening ceremonies in
1992.
Minshall
reprised his role as an artistic director of the Emmy award-winning opening
ceremonies at the1996 Atlanta Games, and Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2002,
for which he received an Emmy.
That
Mas Man made an auspicious debut is testament to its staying power.
 |
| Peter Minshall, remembered as Best artist/designer in Trinidad's Carnival for three decades (Photo: Courtesy Dalton Narine) |
A
full-house screening in New York City’s Greenwich Village, proved that Narine
and his crew could transform a pastiche of scenes that won the People’s Choice
Award for Best Feature Documentary at the 2009 Trinidad & Tobago Film
Festival to the top tier of the New York Film Festival in 2010.
“In
Trinidad, we had a week to put it together,” Narine recalls, “just so the
public would get an inkling regarding what the noise was about. It was a ways
from being a film. Not even a work in progress. Call it ideas.”
Narine
credits not only Callaloo Company’s Peter Minshall and Todd Gulich, but also
filmmakers Benedict Joseph and Danielle Dieffenthaller, editor Eduardo Siu,
Pennelope Beckles,Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival founder/director Dr. Bruce
Paddington, as well as Trinidad & Tobago Film Company and GISL for their
contribution, particularly as the film underwent a period of gestation.
 |
| From left,Todd Gulich, managing director, Callaloo Co., Peter Minshall, an artistic director of the 1996 opening ceremonies for the Atlanta Olympic Games and Hollywood producer Don Mischer, on eve of the Emmy Award-winning extravaganza. (Photo: Callaloo Co.) |
Back
then, to accommodate festivals, it required Narine to transfer Mas Man to HD
hard drive and Blu-ray.
“Today,
the medium is Digital Cinema Package (DCP), and we had it mounted, at huge
cost, in Hollywood, where the film had a
screening at the legendary Ricardo Montalban Theater at Hollywood and Vine.”
“Now,
it is screenable at any movie house anywhere in the world,” Narine says. “I
would love to have the 89-minute version shown at MovieTowne in this format. Of
course, at the behest of Minshallites everywhere, we’ve been pushing a longer
cut at 145 minutes on DVD.
 |
| Peter Minshall’s Papillon, about the ephemeral nature of life, a 2.000-strong portrayal in 1992 Trinidad’s Carnival (Photo: Courtesy Callaloo Co.) |
Mas
Man has been screened in Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe,
Australia and the Caribbean. The film received Best Caribbean Film award in
2012 at a red carpet festival in Antigua that included a couple of American
actors, a filmmaker from India, and the chair of Columbia University’s School of the Arts film
division. It also prompted a stir of excitement in Jamaica media a few months
ago.
But
to Narine’s delight, a few Trinidadian students at US universities have studied
the film as their thesis toward a master’s degree. And a group of UWI students
chose the work for a class project a couple of years ago.
Mas
Man, along with eight earlier Narine documentaries about T&T’s mas/pan
culture, are available at masmanthemovie.com, Crosby’s, Cleve’s, Paper Based Bookshop
(located at the Normandie Hotel), The M Store (Piarco Airport) and Sanch
Electronix, Curepe.
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