Frances-Anne Solomon

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Frances-Anne Solomon (born 28 June 1966) is an English-Caribbean-Canadian filmmaker, writer, producer, and distributor. She has lived in Britain, Barbados and Toronto, Canada.

Biography

Born in England of

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

ian parents, who had gone to Britain in 1958, Frances-Anne Solomon began her professional life at the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

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in England, where she built a successful career as a producer, first with

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...

then with

BBC television drama BBC television dramas have been produced and broadcast since even before the public service company had an officially established television broadcasting network in the United Kingdom. As with any major broadcast network, drama forms an importa ...

. She also produced and directed independent films through her company Leda Serene Films. In 1999, she moved her company to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, where she continued to write, direct, and produce films, television programs, theatre plays, and new media projects. In 2001, she founded the CaribbeanTales Media Group, a charitable organisation producing, exhibiting and distributing educational multi-media projects based on Caribbean-heritage stories. The

CaribbeanTales International Film Festival The CaribbeanTales International Film Festival is an annual film festival, staged in Toronto, Ontario. The festival programs a lineup of films from Caribbean countries, as well as films from the Caribbean diaspora in Canada. The festival was launch ...

, founded in 2006 and based in Toronto, includes an annual festival, community screening series, and youth-focused film challenges. The CaribbeanTales Incubator Program develops original content for the regional and international market, CTFF also holds workshops and festivals in other territories, including to date New York, Barbados, Belize, South Africa, and Cuba. In 2010, Solomon founded CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution Inc, the first film distribution company in the English-speaking Caribbean dedicated to the marketing and sales of Caribbean-themed films. In 2014 she launched CaribbeanTales-TV, a video-on-demand platform. Solomon is a Director member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Early life

Solomon is the granddaughter of

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

independence politician Dr.

Patrick Solomon Patrick may refer to: * Patrick (given name), list of people and fictional characters with this name * Patrick (surname), list of people with this name People * Saint Patrick (c. 385–c. 461), Christian saint *Gilla Pátraic (died 1084), Patrick ...

. When her grandfather left politics and took a role as a diplomat, the family lived in different countries including Canada, the United States, Europe and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. She moved back to Trinidad at nine years old, and attended the girls' "prestige" school,

Bishop Anstey High School Bishop Anstey High School (BAHS), also known as Bishop Anstey or St. Hilary's, is a government-assisted all-girls secondary school in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. It was founded by the Anglican Bishop Arthur Henry Anstey and opened on Jan ...

. At the age of 18 she moved to Canada to live with her mother, and discovered a love of the arts, studying theatre at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...

's U.C. Playhouse, and poetry with

Jay Macpherson Jean Jay Macpherson (June 13, 1931 – March 21, 2012) was a Canadian lyric poet and scholar. '' The Encyclopædia Britannica'' calls her "a member of 'the mythopoeic school of poetry,' who expressed serious religious and philosophical themes in ...

. In 1986, she moved to England, to work for the

...
.

Career

She trained in television production through the two-year BBC Production Training Program and worked with ''Ebony'', the corporation's first Black magazine programme, before being hired as a Radio Drama producer in London. While there she was responsible for helping to introduce a number of initiatives aimed at diversifying the talent pool in BBC Radio Drama. Many great talents got their first entry to Radio Drama in this way, including actors

Adjoa Andoh Adjoa Andoh Hon. FRSL (born 14 January 1963) is a British actress. On stage, she has played lead roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre and the Almeida Theatre. On television, she appeared in tw ...

and Clarence Smith to the BBC Drama Repertory Company, producers

Pam Fraser Solomon Pam Fraser Solomon FRSA is a British producer/director of Guyana, Guyanese heritage, whose work spans four decades in theatre, radio, film, television and education, winning prizes such as the Commission for Racial Equality "Race in the Media Award ...

and Nandita Ghose, composer Dominique Le Gendre and writers Parv Bancil, Maya Chowdhry,

Rukhsana Ahmad Rukhsana Ahmad (born 1948) is a Pakistani writer of novels, short stories, poetry, plays, and a translator, who after marriage migrated to England for further studies and pursue a career in writing. She has campaigned for Asian writers, particula ...

Tanika Gupta Tanika Gupta (born 1 December 1963) is a British playwright. Apart from her work for the theatre, she has also written scripts for television, film and radio plays. Early life Tanika Gupta was born in London to immigrant parents from Kolkata, ...

and Jackie Kay among others. Solomon returned to television as a Script Editor for ScreenPlay, a strand of mostly studio-based TV dramas. Between 1992 and 1998 she worked as a script editor and then as a producer and executive producer for BBC Single Drama and Films under George S. J. Faber. For the BBC she produced and executive-produced feature films, including '' Speak Like a Child'', director John Akomfrah's narrative debut, and '' Love Is The Devil'',

John Maybury John Maybury (born 25 March 1958) is an English filmmaker and artist. He first came to prominence as the director of the music video for the Pet Shop Boys 1984 single "West End Girls". In 2005 he was named as one of the 100 most influential gay ...

's award-winning first feature. She credits her time at the BBC as providing her with a grounding, and vision of the importance and creative power of public service broadcasting. In 1993, Solomon won a place on the prestigious BBC Drama Directors Course. While working as a Drama Producer for the

...
, she continued to run her own company Leda Serene Films, where she developed, produced and directed films including '' What My Mother Told Me'', a Trinidad-based autobiographical story of generational violence in the context of a middle-class family; and ''

Peggy Su! ''Peggy Su!'' is a 1998 film written by Anglo-Chinese playwright Kevin Wong, directed by Frances-Anne Solomon and starring Pamela Oei. His own experience and background being the son of Chinese immigrants working in the laundry business was us ...

'', produced by BBC Films. Set in a Chinese laundry in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

in the 1960s, it remains one of the few British films to depict the lives of the Chinese in Britain. Ultimately she found the racism of the British film and television industry constraining, and like many of her peers, chose to emigrate. Returning to Canada in 2000, she founded the CaribbeanTales Media Group and continued to develop and produce television, feature films and new media projects. ''

Lord Have Mercy! ''Lord Have Mercy!'' is a Canadian television sitcom, produced by Leda Serene Films, first shown on Vision TV in 2003. It received further showings in Canada on Toronto One, APTN and Showcase later the same year. The series, one of the first t ...

'', produced with Claire Prieto and Vanz Chapman, was Canada's first multicultural sitcom, and starred

Russell Peters Russell Dominic Peters (born September 29, 1970) is a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor, and producer. He began performing in Toronto in 1989 and won a Gemini Award in 2008. In 2013, he was number three on ''Forbes'' list of the world's highe ...

alongside Caribbean stars Leonie Forbes and Dennis "Sprangalang" Hall. '' A Winter Tale'', CityTV, 2007, depicts a Caribbean-Canadian community plagued by gun violence in Toronto. Solomon is the director of ''HERO'', her third feature, inspired by the life and Times of Trinidad and Tobago war hero, judge and jurist Ulric Cross. Solomon was the recipient of the 2018 Visionary Award from the ReelWorld Film Festival. On 1 July 2019 Solomon was one of 842 new members invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. The 2019 class is 50 per cent women, 29 per cent people of color, and represents 59 countries.

CaribbeanTales

CaribbeanTales Inc

CaribbeanTales Inc a not-for-profit company was formed in 2001, originally as an internet platform for Caribbean-themed film and arts. Early projects include CaribbeanTales.ca, a multimedia e-newsletter, and '' Literature Alive'', a multi-faceted project including an educational website, audio books, and a documentary series, profiling Caribbean authors, many of whom are based in Canada. The non-profit company became a registered Canadian charity in 2014. In 2006, Solomon founded the

in Toronto as a platform for Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora films and filmmakers from the region. The CaribbeanTales Youth Film Festival, during

Black History Month Black History Month is an annual observance originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month. It has received official recognition from governments in the United States and Canada, and more recently ...

in Toronto, screens Africentric films in schools and communities. The Film Festival Group has also produced festivals and events in Barbados and New York.

CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution

While teaching film at the University of the West Indies in 2009, she consolidated her connections in the region. This led to the creation of CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution, a Barbados-based company, and the first film distribution company dedicated to international distribution of Caribbean-themed audio visual content. The company was co-founded with cultural industries specialist Dr. Keith Nurse, businessman Terrence Farrell, and filmmakers

Lisa Wickham Lisa Wickham is a media producer-director-TV personality in Trinidad and Tobago. She began her television career at the age of six on the weekly ''Rikki Tikki Children's Show'', a live programme on the only national TV station in Trinidad and Tob ...

and Mary Wells, with the goal to tackle head-on problems of the monetisation of Caribbean-themed content and the development of the Caribbean Film Industry.

Creators of Colour Incubator

The Creators of Colour Incubator (formerly CaribbeanTales Incubator Program), also founded in 2010, an annual program that takes place during the Toronto International Film Festival, aims to train filmmakers in the creation and marketing of sustainable content, and has been committed to helping to develop an infrastructure and international profile for Caribbean films, in the region and the diaspora. The Program has evolved into a development and production hub for regional content. In 2015, CaribbeanTales won a five-year sponsorship and production deal with Flow, the brand name for Cable and Wireless Ltd, the largest telecommunications conglomerate in the Caribbean. The deal, brokered with Flow C.E.O John Reid, supports the production of at least three television series pilots a year from the CaribbeanTales Incubator Program. In 2016, the first of these projects were selected: ''Caribbean Girl NYC'' by Mariette Monpierre, ''Battledream Chronicle'' by Alain Bidard, and ''Heat'' by

Menelik Shabazz Menelik Shabazz (30 May 1954 – 28 June 2021) was a Barbados-born British film director, producer, educator, and writer, acknowledged as a pioneer in the development of independent Black British cinema, having been at the forefront of contempor ...

. Production is underway in New York, Martinique and Barbados respectively. In 2017 Flow and CaribbeanTales expanded their relationship to give Flow subscribers around the Caribbean access to CaribbeanTales vast catalogue of films through Television on demand.

CaribbeanTales-TV

CaribbeanTales established an online VOD platform CaribbeanTales-TV.

Works

Selected radio drama

Film and television

Community awards

References

External links

*
Frances-Anne Solomon
- Artist website
CaribbeanTales
- CaribbeanTales, Canada
CaribbeanTales Worldwide DistributionCaribbeanTales Film Festival Group"A Winter Tale
- Profile of Frances-Anne Solomon", ''Caribbean Beat''
"Interview with Frances-Anne Solomon"
''Eye to Eye''
Imaginations: An Interview with Frances-Anne Solomon by Hyacinth Simpson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Solomon, Frances Anne Canadian film directors Black Canadian filmmakers Canadian television directors Canadian film producers Canadian women television directors 20th-century Canadian screenwriters Black Canadian writers English television directors English television producers Living people Canadian women screenwriters Canadian people of Trinidad and Tobago descent 1966 births Black Canadian women Canadian women film producers English people of Trinidad and Tobago descent English emigrants to Canada English women writers English women film directors English screenwriters Black British filmmakers British women screenwriters Television people from London British women television producers 20th-century Canadian women writers 21st-century Canadian screenwriters 21st-century Canadian women writers Canadian women film directors