'Better Mus' Come' on film festival roll - Firefly Films head anticipates distribution deal

Two years before hitting the Jamaican cinemas in October 2010 for a six-week run, Better Mus' Come debuted at the Flashpoint Film Festival in Port Royal, Kingston.

The drama, set in a violently politically polarised 1970s Jamaica, made a strong impression on the Flashpoint audience, the festival organised by Firefly Films - which also produced Better Mus' Come.

That impact has been replicated at two festivals this year, the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival where Better Mus' Come took the Best Feature Film and Fan Favourite awards and the more recent Bahamas Film Festival, where it won the audience award for Best Narrative Feature.

Firefly Films head Paul Bucknor is, naturally, a happy man. "It is nice for people outside Jamaica to appreciate the film," he said. Bucknor points out the irony of the Trinidad and Tobago festival being held during a state of emergency, as the film is set during a state of emergency and climaxes with the Green Bay killings of January 1978. He said the T&T festival is "small but growing and supported by the government".

Bucknor describes The Bahamas festival as "the most important festival in the Caribbean and one of the most important in the region".

Better Mus' Come also received invitations for the Islantilla Cine Forum, held in Spain in August.

On next year's schedule are the Boulder International Film Festival (Colorado, USA) in February and the Downtown Boca Film Festival (Boca Raton, Florida) in June, and Bucknor expects more to be added.

More than that, though, he is looking forward to a distribution deal that will get Better Mus' Come into major international release, "but these things take time. The film is building momentum, winning these festivals. There have been discussions with distributors over the last year".

"The film is just picking up momentum now," Bucknor reiterated. "I have never met anybody who saw the film and did not like it," he claimed.

developed a relationship

It has been nearly six years since the first part of Better Mus' Come was shot in 2006. After shooting some shorts, including Twang, Bucknor said he asked persons at Firefly to come up with three ideas each for a feature film. "Storm Saulter (who directed Better Mus' Come) mentioned Green Bay Massacre and right away, the way that we should approach the film came to me," Bucknor said.

That approach was looking from the inside out and he had developed a relationship with Sandy Park, St Andrew, previously with the intention of doing a film. That sprang from seeing Chris Browne's Third World Cop, with its outstanding location.

So the production became a part of the community, Bucknor saying that Firefly spent $5 million refurbishing the Sandy Park Basic School. This was from a budget of US$650,000, 80 per cent of which was eventually reimbursed by a financier from Miami.

In addition, the main actors who were not from Sandy Park, spent three months living in the community before shooting began and became a part of it.

Among those with leading roles in Better Mus' Come are Sheldon Shepherd (Ricky), Short Man (Everaldo Creary), Kemala (Nicole Sky Grey) and Ricardo Orgill (Flames), the last from Sandy Park. Plus, Bucknor points out, "a lot of people got work. Almost all the extras were from Sandy Park".

"That is why it feels so visceral," Bucknor said of Better Mus' Come. "I thought it was better to do a story from inside an inner-city community instead of outside."

Auditions were held at Sandy Park and the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts and Bucknor said "the cast became the actors, rather than the other way round. The scene where they attacked the prime minister's office was when the lead actors were selected. Everaldo, Flames, Sheldon - it just had to be them. They had the swag".

Elements of Better Mus' Come are historically true, interwoven with the script on the lives of the men who were lured to Green Bay and killed. "We got a lot of real stories and put them into the script," Bucknor said. There were those stories which did not make the cut, including the counter flour poisoning scare, which Bucknor said could not be worked in to flow naturally with the script. However, the food shortages were incorporated.

The focus was on having a story that was not preaching. "We wanted to, not so much comment on what was happening, but express what was happening," Bucknor said.

The film addresses the role of the emerging 'community leaders', who eventually became known as 'dons'. However, Bucknor said the objective was to avoid clichés. So "you are looking at the film and you are not thinking about dons, but they are dons. They are young and fearless," he said. "Dons of communities have the influence. That is what they have."

general election run-up

He had to negotiate with real-life dons while shooting Better Mus' Come, but said that he had done it previously for shorts produced by Firefly Films "and that made it a natural progression".

In the current heat of the general election run-up, Bucknor said that although there is none of the violence between the parties that is in Better Mus' Come "when I see the orange dancing and the green dancing it still feels tribal to me. The whole notion of dancing together, that is an ancient ritual".

He points out that the violence in Better Mus' Come was toned down considerably from what it could have been. "It think the way the violence was handled in the film was quite subtle. It is not like there was a lot of blood everywhere. When we cut the film, we had consideration for the squeamish persons," he said. There were also many other uptown scenes than made the final cut, but will be incorporated into a DVD version.

Initially, there was some discomfort with the title, as 'Better Mus' Come' was a People's National Party slogan. However, Bucknor said, as the film is about a Jamaica Labour Party gang it was a way of keeping a balance. Still, during shooting there was a sense of keeping the subject matter private. "We did not tell anybody it was about the Green Bay Massacre," he said.

Despite the festival's success, Bucknor said Better Mus' Come is nowhere near a financial break-even. He demands; "how can you break even in Jamaica when you get only 35 per cent of the profit (at the cinemas)? ... I think if we could get a better share of the box office we could start a micro-industry in Jamaica. We love to see ourselves on screen".

And while it is nice to have a large budget to make a film, Bucknor points out the downside. "The bigger the budget, the more money it has to make before it turns a profit. I am OK with the budget being as big as it needs to be, but no bigger".

So, with Better Mus' Come getting a good reception at festivals, Bucknor is not losing sight of the objective of filmmaking. "It is to make a film, get it out to the public, recoup and generate a profit," he said.