Mariel Brown
Documentary Short
Trinidad & Tobago | 2013
VENUE: Moray House // June 2, 2017 // 7:00 PM
SYNOPSIS: John Ambrose Kenwyn Rawlins, was an ordinary man of modest means. He was a great father, grandfather and husband; an obedient public servant. Yet the most vivid part of his life was lived in was a small workshop beneath his house. In there, at the end of his workday, he made things. From simple push toys to elaborate 1/16th scale waterline battle ship models and dockyards, miniature furniture and dolls houses, he painstakingly constructed everything from scratch, sometimes spending upwards of a year on a single model. Smallman is an exploration of the worlds both real and imagined that Kenwyn Rawlins made, as told by his son Richard.
Trailer:
About the Filmmaker:
MARIEL BROWN
Mariel Brown, is the award-winning director of the creative and production company SAVANT, and has been working in film and television since 1997. Savant is committed to uncovering and documenting the Caribbean’s rich history and culture, and is especially focused on the lives of its often-unheralded artists. Mariel has produced and directed three television series, two feature length films – THE INSATIABLE SEASON (2007) and THE SOLITARY ALCHEMIST (2010) – a three-part documentary series INWARD HUNGER – THE STORY OF ERIC WILLIAMS (2012) and one short film, SMALLMAN (2013). In each case, she successfully raised production funding through the private sector, local development agencies, as well via crowdfunding platforms and private funders.
Since 2007, her films have won the jury prize for best documentary short (Caribbean Tales International Film Festival), the Audience Choice Award for Best Documentary, Best Locally Produced Film and Best Local Film Jury Prize at the well-regarded Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival. He films have been screened at several international festivals including Clermont-Ferrand (market), the Pan African Film Festival, the Black Harvest Film Festival and Havana International Film Festival. Her films have been selected for curated screenings at the prestigious Victoria & Albert Museum in London, The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto and Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut. Two of her feature films have been acquired for distribution by CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution and are available through their partnership with Third World Newsreel, and in 2014, Smallman was picked up for online distribution by Afropop.tv and cable TV broadcast by Shorts TV in the UK.
Mariel is currently in post-production on another feature documentary, Unfinished Sentences, a personal exploration of her tumultuous relationship with her late father, writer Wayne Brown. Her work has been written about in top-flight international publications including Variety, Screen Daily and Filmmaker Magazine.
