New Streams of Interest pour in for MultiMedia MicroEpic: India Africa. They join LAC and UK with additional interests from women, mobile & animation film promoters in the new creative genre that bridges old and new world storytelling traditions.
I am so thrilled that such diverse elements in expanding geographic, technical and cultural spheres, can find common ground in the layered yet light new creative genre, the MultiMedia MicroEpic, defying great odds and pushing the boundaries of human endurance, as it is being developed under tremendous health and other challenges of our uncertain times.
Dr Kris Rampersad on new interest streams attracted to the creative genre, the MultiMedia MicroEpic
The new interests from India/Australia, Africa and the Caribbean join previous shown by Latin America and Europe in the genre that amalgamates, through both theme and technique, the creativity of the diverse cultures of the world in film format made for new media. The MultiMedia MicroEpic was introduced to the Commonwealth Scholars at InterChange 21, hosted by the British Council., the UK’s international agency for culture and education.
As the journey of the MultiMedia MicroEpic unfolds, its creation and now evolution amidst personal and compounded challenges of the Pandemic, will prove to be a testimony to the therapeutic and healing powers of the creative impulse.
New demographics emitting signals of curiosity include those interested in advancing women and gender-sensitive media, academic/educationally focussed themes and forms, film utilising new media/mobile technologies – and – drumroll – the exploding field of animation.
The new film festivals’ requests indicate expanding appeal of the novel MultiMedia epic genre to demographics of film promoters interested in variations from conventional treatment of thematic and stylistic focus.
Specialist Storytelling Form
The MultiMedia Micro Epic as a specialist form of storytelling involving creative collision and collusion of traditional storytelling and multimedia, created by Dr Kris Rampersad. It integrates the oral and literary storytelling traditions of diverse world cultures.
Intended as a panacea for historical fragmentation that has perpetuated schisms and strife amongst peoples across the world, among the core features of the MultiMedia MicroEpic is its adaptation of the traditional long form epic for short form new/social media through creative collusion of conventional literary and new digital tools and techniques.
The MultiMedia Micro Epic further delves into pertinent thematic preoccupations of our times including cultural diversity, gender empowerment and girls’ and women’s education and advancement, inclusion, marginalisation, institutionalised racism, bias and discrimination, environmental degradation, agriculture and food security, oral literary and digital technologies among others.
Melodious New World Musical Mix
Against the musical backdrop of intercultural rhythms and natural sounds, the new MultiMedia MicroEpic genre responds to the Pandemic challenge that has pressured the education sector into alliance and synergies with multimedia.
The MultiMedia MicroEpic confronts and challenges educators and entertainers to treat with their education and entertainment functions, not in isolation but unified as edutainment. The pilot segments incorporate the indigeneous music of the Caribbean and our mixed diasporic ancestral trails through India and Africa along with other components from oral and literary heritage.
Music tailored to the new MultiMedia MicroEpic form comes from Randolph Karamath, an IndoTrinidadian educator who pioneered Indo-and Afro- Caribbean musical rhythms in steelpan music education in Canada and Oliver Chapman whose music encompasses the jazz-soul-calypso of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora.
UnMasking Her Story Africa Film Festival for Women’s Voices
One Night To Bloom, the MultiMedia MicroEpic Biopic of the Anthropocene drew the attention of the African Women Mobile International Film Festival which promotes ‘female-centric films with strong female characters or stories about women from across the globe.’ As a biopic, it confronts and treats with the challenges of girls’ education, patriarchy, global agenda setting, institutionalised prejudice, discrimination and bias, media, medical and other sustaainble development issues in this age defined as the Anthropocene.
With the 2021 theme, Unmasking Her Story, this festival aims to give women a voice to tell their own stories to right history and have men celebrate more positive aspects of women through filmmaking.’ It is dedicated to promotion of independent filmmakers from all over the world who use their works to celebrate and promote womanhood, spotlight women in the society; while celebrating their unique struggles and experiences to create sheroes, role models and examples for the younger generation to emulate.
There are several stories of ordinary women who have done extraordinary things that have gone untold… More men should start telling stories that don’t just portray women as sex objects but as humans while more women need to also get involved in the storytelling process by telling their own stories. We need new stories. We need to go back to our roots. We built and preserved our societies and cities around storytelling. We don’t (just) sit together under tall trees in the evening breeze, but we can through the digital media reach across borders to our brothers and sisters in different countries to remind them who they are. Who We Are! – We can shape our leadership through storytelling.- We can encourage more women to aspire and take up leadership positions through storytelling- We can encourage the entrepreneurship spirit and empower more women through storytelling.
UnMasking Her Story
India Australia Academia and International Film Festivals
Cineaste International Film Festival of India has also signaled interest for its 2021 Festival in MotherContinent – The MultiMedia MicroEpic of the Anthropocene.
Cineaste’s is a joint initiate of the Delhi Metropolitan Educational Institute/Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and the Deakin University of Victoria, Australia. It envisions cinema as a ‘powerful mediums, with its accessibility and strength of communication’. … mirrored by representation of a multitude of voices.
Through its film festival, it aims to bridge ‘voices and perspectives and the mainstream viewer and market’ and ‘encourage and engage with diversity of art and representation, foster critical thinking with respect to stories, art, social issues, politics and seek out better representations of the world and it’s travails.’
Launched in 2019, with a particular target catchment in educational institutions, CIFFI describes itself as ‘a pioneering voice in the international film festival circuit.’
Academic pursuits seek to challenge and broaden every known horizon of knowledge and perspective. This perspective leads CIFFI 2021 and is the uniqueness of the festival. In the age of OTT platforms and omnipresence of digital media, we seek to take not just watch films, but to broaden the horizons of Films and Stories!
Cineaste International Film Festival
Animae Caribe Shortlists MultiMedia MicroEpic for Project ReRoot
Anime Caribe has also shortlisted The MultiMedia MicroEpic for Project Reroot.
I awoke to the good news of Anime Caribe shortlisting of the MultiMedia MicroEpic for Project ReRoot.
Project ReRoot is a joint from Animae Caribe Animation & Digital Media Festival, Caribbean Export, and the American Embassy.
It based its selection on its interest in ‘stories and concepts for animated series that connects the Caribbean and the diaspora…evolved into cultural reminders of our deep-rooted connections…told through authentic voices”… as a ‘conduit for the re-rooting, re-examining and restructuring of our past present and future, through storytelling and technology.
Animae Caribe states that its Animation and Digital Media Festival is the Caribbean’s biggest and most prestigious animation festival, providing a platform for the development of animators, as well as the exposure of animation as a viable business.
Multiple Routes to Roots & other themes
The MultiMedia MicroEpic stands as testimony to growing interests in pursuit of its form of edutainment, its thematic focus on multiple routes to roots, a hunger for new avenues to education and entertainment that capture, explore and excite mushrooming interest in diverse intercultural cultural experiences.
A Bit About Dr Kris Rampersad in Film
Dr Kris Rampersad is a literary scholar and an award-winning journalist, international development educator and outreach and advocacy strategist. Her career in media spans print, television and new media.
She researched and wrote the award-winning Cross Country Television series – the only local television programme to achieve top ratings in a prime time slot. She researched, wrote and produced That Is Woman, a series that delves into the rocky road to the top by leading women. She has also researched, wrote and/or directed videos along developmental themes, including – Media & Agriculture – A Marriage of Necessity – EU/ACP Center for Technical Cooperation in Agriculture; Health & Environment for Pan American Health Organisation /World Health Organisation; Gene Scene, a series on biotechnology for the National Institute of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology, among others .
Dr Kris Rampersad was instrumental in establishment and development of the Caribbean Film sector through the Commonwealth Foundation; and conceptualised and directed Evening Epic and the Awards for Literature, Drama and Film, through an alliance with Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, Movie Towne and other partners – which became the forerunner of the now annual national film festival. She also functioned as a defacto adviser to the Merchant/Ivory Production of Nobel Laureate Sir Vidia Naipaul’s The Mystic Masseur, which featured Om Puri, Aasif Mandvi, Zohra Mumtaz Sehgal, James Fox, Aasif Mandi Ayesha Dharker.
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Related: MultiMedia MicroEpic Scores HaTTrick among Global Film Fests