A short film based on Caribbean poet Roger Robinson’s tough but tender and ethereal poem, ‘Paradise’, visualising paradise through a distorted lens and uncovering the existential undertones of a ‘perfect’ resort life in the current climate crisis.
Paradise explores different perspectives of paradise through a Caribbean-English lens. The poem is aligned with the co-directors’ fragmented and romanticised connection to their Caribbean heritage and nuanced conversations with Jamaican relatives about the history and future of their ‘developing’ homeland.
A significant number of the beaches in the Caribbean have been appropriated by tourism and all-inclusive luxury resorts; the kind that host wealthy tourists who rarely leave the comfort of sterile hotels. The idea of the Caribbean as a perfect paradise is subtly suggested to be a fantasy or dream – one that reassures visitors whose only concern is a blissful escape from real life.
Directed by MISSOHIO
D.O.P — Fin Frew @fin_frew
Producer — Ellie Radford @elleanorina
Composer — Max Winter @max_winter
Set Design — Charlotte Brason @charlottebrason
Set Design — Sholto Price @sholtss
Set Painter — @stevieboyessex
Costume Design — Milena Agbaba @mil3na__
HMUA — Emily Engleman @emilyenglemanmakeup
Production Assistant — Stephen Field @stephenfieldbass
Location — @portico.studios
