DIRECTOR and producer of several locally-produced films, Mathurine Emmanuel, is currently working on her fourth film, which she expects to be a huge success.
The film: “Shantaye’s World” chronicles the life of Shantaye as it relates to some of the harrowing experiences she endured since falling in love with her boyfriend, Jn. Claude, the son of a French doctor.
“So far so good…I hope when the film is completed we will have a wonderful film which both the young and old can sit together and enjoy,” Emmanuel told this reporter in a brief interview, moments before filming a scene in Vieux-Fort last week.
In Vieux-Fort, she recreated a scene of the Vieux-Fort market in the 60’s, where Shantaye had her first date with Jn. Claude.
Shantaye, who left school with a mere Standard 6 school-leaving certificate, usually goes to the Vieux-Fort market to help her father, who is a farmer, to sell his produce.
“During the 1960’s, it was virtually impossible for young people to socialize in a formal setting, so they would meet at the springs, river, market…” Emmanuel said.
According to Emmanuel, so far they have created a number of scenes in various parts of the island, adding that there are several more which needs to be created before the film is completed — two of which she identified as a Christmas scene and a funeral scene.
“I want young people to experience indirectly how Christmas was in the 60’s…” Emmanuel said.
She said after filming the scenes here, the group will be heading to London to create another scene.
Emmanuel described the filming of the movie so far as “challenging, but enjoyable.”
“It has been a wonderful journey… It’s almost three years now since we are filming,” she said.
As it relates to the cost of the film all she said it is “exorbitant”.
She said at the moment she can’t say when the movie will be completed.
Emmanuel has produced several other films, two of which are Ribbons of Blue and Troubled Waters.
I’m holding in my hands right now something non fictional, it’s a picture post card showing
busy business, subtitled, “Saturday Morning – St.Lucia” at the front of the Castries Market
on Jeremie Street. I get Goosebumps watching the scene.There are so many trays and
tables loaded with everything from ground vegetable to anything imaginable. Ladies with
straw hats, head kerchiefs and this one with a loaded plastic basket well balanced upon
her head while having a loaded plastic bag hanging from her arm standing in a friendly
conversation with a lady friend, the ‘Hour Clock’ shows 9:30 and all the umbrellas tell me
it was very hot indeed. To me there’s no where in the world one can go to match this scenery.
I have lived near Portobello Road in Notting Hill London, been to Petticoat Lane, the various
open markets in Europe, Casbahs name it but, there’s something sentimental about the
Castries Market with the humility of it’s beginning and it’s evolvement into a beautiful landmark.
People, this is not fiction but raw reality.I wish it could remain as is but it’s to be demolished for greater space.