Mason Richards, a Brooklyn, USA-based Guyanese award-winning filmmaker, professor, and creative producer, recently spent two weeks in Guyana, in search of a location to shoot scenes for his upcoming feature film, “Beyond the Seawall”.
Although the date of the release of the film is yet to be announced, the writer/director/producer with 20-plus years’ experience in the entertainment industry revealed that it builds upon his short film “The Seawall”.
The short film, Richards explained, is about migration; about a boy leaving Guyana to be with his mother in Brooklyn, New York. In the feature, “Beyond the Seawall”, the boy, now an adult, returns to Guyana to sell his grandmother’s house. In so doing, he discovered things about his past that prompted him to begin his own investigation. He meets up with his best friend, Anil, and goes on a deeper journey into the heart of Guyana to find his father who had left the family when he was born.
Richards related that he thinks it is important to tell the story of Guyana because when he was in France for the Cannes Festival with the short film “The Seawall”, “I said I was from Guyana, people first thought I was saying Ghana in Africa. They didn’t know. People thought that Guyana was about Jim Jones which is awful, so I think there is a need to have an impact to tell all the different stories of Guyana. Our beautiful food, our culture, the Amazon, the ecosystem, the merging of our diversity of culture.”
He described the film as impactful because it gave him the opportunity to educate the rest of the world about Guyana and also with “The Seawall,” the award winning film, he was able to travel around the world to places like Cuba, Mexico, and the African continent. He noted that people were connecting and relating, saying, “that emigrant story is my story. So, we are seeing how Guyana is connected to the rest of the world as part of the Caribbean diaspora. This impact is the image and the representation of a larger culture of Guyana.”
“Beyond the Seawall” takes place in little Guyana, in Queens, New York and according to Richards, the crew are also shooting some of the scenes in Trinidad and some in Guyana to portray migration between these countries.
For the two weeks he was in Guyana, he said he searched locations and a talented crew for the feature film, and also to offer his services as a professor of a film to the young people of Guyana. “I want to be able to teach film classes, screenwriting classes, and I want to hear stories from young people in Guyana. I feel that I have the opportunity to make a film and tell my story and I want to create space for other youngsters in the country to share their stories. Whether there is the Amerindian village or Indo-Guyanese or Muslim or whatever. I think it is important that we get our stories, not just in Guyana but in the entire Caribbean diaspora. That’s why I’m here to potentially teach classes. I’m here to create more of a creative arts culture in our country. There are a lot of Guyanese nationals living in London, Toronto, New York and all over, doing amazing things in our community in terms of literature, film, magazines, design, and I want to see that in Guyana. So, I’m here to see who is going to partner with me. Whether it’s the private sector, business people, to make us more expressive in that regard, in terms of culture.”
As regards the location search, he said, “We have found a few places, we are going to shoot in Georgetown, so we are looking for places in Georgetown. We are going to shoot in Linden, which I recently visited. Obviously we are shooting on the seawall.”
He noted that included in his film will be the Kaieteur Falls since part of the script tells the story about Chief Kai so as to highlight the diversity of Guyana, the Indo diversity, and also the ethnic diversity like the Amerindian villages.
In the two weeks he was in Guyana which ended on September 7th, he had just a few hours of short scenes done and he will use this back in Los Angeles to try to raise the rest of the funds for the film. Once the rest of the funds are raised, he along with his team will bring their crew from Hollywood to Guyana for a couple of weeks including lead actor Joseph David Jones, to film.
“… My plan is to have the young people work alongside the crew from Hollywood. So, I want to train some of our young Guyanese film makers to work with professionals from Hollywood.”
He disclosed that talks were held with Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Charles Ramson, as well as other officials about the potential of establishing a film commission in the country. He explained that this will allow people to come to Guyana to make films, opening the way for local talent to be used.
So far, he said, he has received some of the support necessary for the film. However, he is still seeking support from people in Guyana who are interested in supporting the arts and young people in culture. “I’m hoping we get that support from the private sector,” he added.
Richards was born and lived in Campbellville, Georgetown. He then emigrated to Brooklyn, New York, with his family at the early age of seven. Richards, who was once a child actor, eventually went to college, fell in love with the arts, and started directing plays in college. He worked in the Hollywood industry for a few years before becoming an independent filmmaker.
Richards owns A M Creative Agency which is based in New York, Miami, and London. “The idea for “The Seawall”, Richards reflected, was formed since his time in grad school. “When I was in grad school, I had to make a senior thesis film and I came back home to Guyana. It was the first time I came back since I left as a boy. I spent some time in Campbellville and Kitty and I wrote a script. He related that the short film had a nine-minute premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in France. It was one of the first Guyanese films to ever do that, he proudly stated. The film went on to play in other film festivals, such as the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival, and Havana Film Festival in Cuba.
Richards is also a graduate of California Institute of the Arts with a Master of Fine Arts in directing.
