Having being screened at the fifth annual Belize Film Festival in July, Eintou Pearl Springer’s movie, Ida’s Daughter: The World of Eintou Pearl Springer, will be shown in Trinidad for the first time today. The local screening is scheduled for 6.30 pm, in the AV Room at Nalis, Abercromby Street, Port-of-Spain. Ida’s Daughter: The World of Eintou Pearl Springer is a feature documentary written, produced, and directed by Dr Amon Saba Saakana. This feature documentary explores the life experiences of Poet Laureate, and former Director of the Heritage Library at Nalis, Eintou Springer and juxtaposes these experiences to her work as a poet, playwright, actor, cultural activist and about literature becoming the source of her interest.
The documentary explores her involvement in the Black Power events of 1970 in which her cousin Theodore Guerra, SC, was a prosecutor and she an activist. It examines her movement from the influence of the Euro-Christian philosophy and her gravitation to, and the meaning of African religion in her life. It recalls her childhood in Santa Cruz, the cultural milieu that shaped her, the role of the extended family and in particular her grandfather; the stick fighting, the mas, the cuisine, the fauna, and flora.
Interspersed in this reminiscence are scenes of Eintou addressing a public audience, along with excerpts from her plays, Kamboulay, and Hyarima, and her voice of poetry. The critical voices of Prof Carole Boyce-Davies, Prof Funso Aiyejina, and Iya Sangowunmi discuss the relevance of her work to the region. The video shows the extent of the influence of music in her work and life: Prof Aiyejina, Mavis John, and Wendell Manwarren of 3 Canal all speak of their musical & cultural interaction with Eintou. The final sequence speaks of her working life, class and shade prejudices, and her mother’s domestic work to educate her brother and herself.
Dr Amon Saba Saakana:
The producer, Dr Saakana is a Trinidad born writer, researcher, and publisher who attended the Mountview Theatre School studying playwriting and holds a PhD in Drama Studies from Goldsmiths College (University of London). He has worked extensively in the field as a freelance journalist from 1969 to 1982, writing extensively on drama for Time Out, and Black Theatre, Plays & Players, Metropolitan Review, The Washington Post (Book World), The Black American, Rock (USA & UK).
Saakana also worked as a record producer, writer of liner notes for albums, a composer of lyrics, a researcher for BBC TV (Panorama), co-producer for a radio documentary on Bob Marley and Rastafari for the BBC World Service, and co-writer for a television show (ITV) on Reggae music. He also published the first history of Jamaican music, Jah Music: The Evolution of the Jamaican Popular Song in 1980.
His first documentary was commissioned by the Arts Council of Britain, entitled Texturing the Word: 40 Years of Caribbean Writing in Britain featuring Linton Kwesi Johnson, Kamau Brathwaite, Grace Nichols, George Lamming and other prominent London-based writers. Ida’s daughter: The World of Eintou Pearl Springer is the first in a series of short and long features entitled Roots in the Tradition. Saakana is currently completing work on a documentary entitled Aripo’s Dazzling Light: MasterArtist LeRoy Clarke. Dr Saakana lives in Caura among the Northern Range and in a semi-urban area of London.
Information on Documentary
Running time: 75 mins
Year of production: 2010
Country of origin: Trinidad & Tobago/UK
Language: English
Genre: Documentary written, produced & directed by Amon Saba Saakana
Videographer and editor: Edmund Attong
E-mail: intefinstitute@aol.com
© & ®Intef CommunicatIons Ltd. 2010
