Your upcoming film, By Heart’s Hand, is based on the Heartman. In a nutshell, what is the film about?
By Heart’s Hand is a folklore thriller based on a twisted bedtime story that takes a devastating turn. The story dives into the lives of two detectives spiraling into chaos as they stumble onto multiple crime scenes spread across the island of Barbados, each with peculiar similarities, like victims missing hearts. As the puzzle expands, the detectives find themselves face to face with a harsh reality created by the Heartman himself.
Why tell this story, about the Heartman, and not another Bajan folk character or folk tale?
The culture of Barbados is very precious, as it shapes the mentality of those born here as well as those who adopt here as their home. For generations, storytelling of strange, relatable occurrences nationwide evolved into the creation of ‘mythical’ characters; all used as a tool to guide upcoming youth with fear as a fuel. Most of these characters have a vague motive to their atrocities, which leaves room for creative clarification. The Heartman is just a start. Myself along with my team plan to produce a solid realistic motive to our own interpretation of the Heartman.
The tagline for this film is “Bajan folklore with a twist”. Could you explain what you mean by that and how you’re going about accomplishing it?
The depiction of our Heartman stems from the original mythology documented over time, with a blend of personal experiences from senior members of the community. This research was sealed with creative imagination and is brought to life with the essence of Caribbean realism.
Is adapting Bajan folklore the overall mission of Epic Arts? Or is it just for this specific film?
As a tribute to our culture, Epicarts presents By Hearts Hand, but EpicArts is a production business focused on cinematic quality content ranging from film, sound, and commercials touching base, building, and motivating all aspects of creativity along the way.
Filmmaking is hard in general, and with our specific challenges here in Barbados even more so. What was the process of making this film like for you?
The journey of this production was like a banana boat in the Pacific Ocean. It takes a lot of effort, patience, time, availability, and diverse understanding of human behavior.
With every step forward there are challenges like the alignment of availability with casts & crew, maintaining the motivation of multiple individuals even on days where hope seems invisible, and keeping a solid mental stability in a nation [in] which support is granted seldomly.
Despite the odds and limited resources, with an astounding team, we managed to push through to the end, enjoying every moment, which [in turn] creates memories that spread through thought sparking lifelong conversation.
After months of hard work and fine tuning, it’s like a breath of ease knowing that no matter the feedback, it is perfect, as it was seen through with love from the start to end.
Looking back on your journey making this film, what was the most rewarding part of it?
The most rewarding part of it all for me is to be able to bring different personalities together in one space [and] developing a unity of ideas and perspectives which can be brought to life. The most satisfying part is to see the end result of facial expressions and bonds created by experience.
How do you feel now that it’s finally going out into the world?
To release this to the world, honestly, is like a gender revealing at a baby shower. After months of hard work and fine tuning, it’s like a breath of ease knowing that no matter the feedback, it is perfect, as it was seen through with love from the start to end.
The film is premiering this summer, on June 12th. What are your distribution and exhibition plans aside from that?
The official premier date is Friday June 12th from 9pm until. Doors open at 8pm. There will be food and drinks on sale catered to [an] 18+ crowd. However, afterwards, the movie will be shown at the same location for multiple weekends; creating our own theater space upstairs at the Centre For Hybrid studies (Old Spirit Bond) in Bridgetown, Barbados.
Tickets will be available at the Center as well as some of the [cast]. For details and updates please feel free to follow our Instagram pages @epicart_central or @epicarts_realm.
What are you hoping to accomplish with By Heart’s Hand?
By Heart’s Hand is a grain of dust in the haystack of EpicArts productions in the making. A grain of dust which in its own world is a giant creator of motivation and hope for other creatives aspiring to be great, believing they need expensive equipment and hundreds of thousands of dollars to start creating quality content. By Heart’s Hand is a plaque signifying unity and powerful bonds created through physical interaction in an AI world.
