Short Film

Synopsis

“Auntie” is a middle­-aged seamstress and respected caregiver in her rural Barbadian community. Twelve­ year ­old Kera is her latest ward, left in Auntie’s care when her mother migrated to England in search of a better life. Seven years later, the two have grown close and Auntie is confronted with the day she has long dreaded when the plane ticket arrives that will reunite Kera with her mother.

Development

Auntie selected for development by the Commonwealth Foundation under its Commonwealth Shorts programme, a capacity building scheme which gave emerging writers/directors the opportunity to make a film which highlighted issues affecting them and their communities. The theme was inter-generational relationships. Over 900 submissions were received from 54 countries and five short films were selected from Barbados, the Bahamas, Canada, New Zealand and Kenya.

Reception

Auntie had its first screening in New Zealand in February 2013 as part of the Pacific Voices exchange programme and was incredibly well-received by immigrant communities there who found similarities in their own experiences. It went on to its festival premiere at Encounters Short Film Festival in Bristol and has played somewhere in the world nearly every month since then.

The film was acquired by Black Public Media in the US for its Afropop web series and is distributed by the Public Media Alliance to public broadcast outlets in the Commonwealth. It has also been purchased by several universities that have added the film to their syllabus. Since 2014, the film has been freely available for personal and non-commercial community screenings.

Selected screenings and media coverage