The BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival 2023 which ends today in the UK, featured a Guyanese film on its programme. It is a prominent, international and very influential annual event, which describes itself as “a springtime celebration of queer cinema”. The screening there of a Guyanese film is significant. In fact, the very recognition by such a prestigious festival is itself an achievement, but it goes further because it will expose the work to an international audience and can redound to the development of Guyana’s small and still struggling film industry.
Eating Papaw On the Seashore is a short film by Rae Wiltshire, produced in Georgetown in 2022 by Maribunta Pictures and distributed by Studio Anansi. It was written by Wiltshire and directed by him and Nickosi Layne, with a number of prominent names in its list of credits. These include prolific filmmaker Romola Lucas as Executive Producer, with Wiltshire and Melissa Roberts as Producers and Akbar Singh as Associate Producer.