Commonwealth Shorts: ‘Auntie’
Synopsis
When a barrel arrives from London bearing an unwelcome parcel, a caregiver in Barbados makes a hasty decision that risks destroying her special bond with a beloved child.
Writer/director Lisa Harewood
Lisa is a lifelong and passionate film fan from the island of Barbados. After a working life spent mostly in the fields of advertising, marketing and development communication, she decided to pursue her long-held ambition of making a film, joining writer/director Russell Watson’s micro-budget feature project, A Hand Full of Dirt, as Producer.
On its release in 2011, the film was nominated for Best First Feature Narrative Director at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles and won the Audience Award at the Reelworld Film Festival in Toronto. That year Lisa was also selected to participate in an incubator programme in Toronto for emerging Caribbean film producers and in 2012 she was tipped as one of Reelworld’s Emerging 20 filmmakers.
AUNTIE is Lisa’s debut effort as a writer and director and came about as a result of a last-minute decision to enter the Commonwealth Writers’ short film competition. The short explores her interest in the effect of migration on those who leave their home countries and those who are left behind. These are issues she is exploring in-depth with a feature length narrative project currently in development. Also on her slate is a feature length documentary and she is attached as a producer to Canadian director Dawn Wilkinson’s next feature project.
Lisa’s production company, Gate House Media, is dedicated to making work that accurately reflects the Caribbean experience and to broadening access for the Caribbean Diaspora to their own stories.
Her short film, ‘Auntie’, was shown as part of the Commonwealth Shorts launch in Auckland, New Zealand, 26th February.
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