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Two weeks ago, film-maker and photographer Ricardo Scipio left his Sechelt home and drove to Los Angeles in a state of anticipation and fatigue, stopping at decrepit motels and eating road food. Such is the life of a film-maker bound for the premiere of his new feature film, Finder of Lost Children, at the Hollywood Black Film Festival on June 3.
The film was more than two years in the making, shot mostly in B.C., and employed a budget so slim that many, including his own cast members, doubted he would finish it. Scipio describes its completion as: “Pure magic, like pulling a rabbit out of a hat.”
The film will receive its Canadian premiere in mid-July in Toronto, but until then it’s open season among the promotional hoopla of L.A. Films shown at the Hollywood Black Film Festival were entered into a competition whereby the film was shown on-line and viewers were asked to vote for their favourite. Despite the 117 viewers who watched Finder at home, the film came second.
“It was my first time with the on-line part of the process,” Scipio said. “People wrote a lot of good comments, which you can’t always get at a theatre.”
Because the screening opened at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday, it did not draw a huge crowd. Scipio remains hopeful and tends to take the long-term view of the experience. Those who attended really liked the film, asked a lot of questions and gave him a boost to the next gig in Toronto where he is expecting a larger audience.
The premise for Finder of Lost Children is loosely drawn from Trinidad-born Scipio’s own life. It is the story of two half-sisters of Caribbean heritage who meet for the first time when their father dies. One of the sisters, Maye (Marquisse du Monde), is moody and intense while the other, Angie (Hawa Ayorech) is outgoing and deeply interested in pursuing a sibling relationship. They are forced to come to terms with the fact that they are both children of a promiscuous father.
The two take a trip across Canada together to their father’s last home where they read his personal letters and discover the existence of several other half brothers and sisters who are likely unaware of their father’s passing. The sisters decide to extend the road trip to find their siblings, and this tentative probing into family dynamics generates both happy and tragic memories. The secrets and lies that confront them must be faced.
The movie, which is often slow moving and thoughtful, lights up when Maye’s irrepressible mother (Yvonne Davidson) enters the scene. It also hums to the sounds of Caribbean steel band music.
The camera work employs many static photographic images: the sisters lie on their dead father’s bed together, posed awkwardly; the two discuss the nature of death while driving through the night, their faces soft, earrings dangling. At one point a character remarks that she is haunted by all the mad, sad children left out there. This is the heart of Scipio’s film: If your father was a Caribbean man, he asks, who had several or more children with different mothers and failed to provide emotional or financial support, then he wants to hear your story.
But Scipio does not dwell on that place of hurt — there are lots of other projects in the offing. He’s at work on his next book of photographs, and he’ll continue his healing herb practice. He intends to organize a screening of the film on the Coast at a later date. For more, see: www.finder
oflostchildrenmovie.com.
