The St. John Film Society is pleased to announce the opening of the 2017 season with a screening of Timeless – a Virgin Islands Love Story, on Tuesday, January 10 at the St. John School of the Arts in Cruz Bay. The screening will begin at 7:30 pm.
Native Virgin Islander, writer/director Edward La Borde Jr., will be present to discuss the film and what it means to be a filmmaker in the Virgin Islands.
Timeless is the story of a young Ghanaian warrior, who loses her soulmate to the slave trade long ago. Their souls reunite in the present in the form of Malinda Benjamin, a U.S. Virgin Islands senator, and Alphonse Walcott, a gifted writer who has just returned home from New York. All is well until Alphonse meets Bianca, an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic, in a seedy St. Thomas brothel.
Although the film is romantic fiction, it still manages to highlight history and culture within the Virgin Islands through its rich imagery and a compelling story. Timeless has been chosen as an Official 2016 Selection of the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival.
The St. John Film Society has been presenting independent films that celebrate the human spirit with a focus on the Caribbean since 2009. The coming season will feature films by Caribbean filmmakers from Trinidad, Barbados, New Orleans, Bequia and more.
Screenings will be held on the first Tuesday of the month (with the exception of February) at the St. John School of the Arts in Cruz Bay on January 10, February 7, February 21, March 7, April 4, May 2 and June 6. A $5.00 donation is suggested at each screening. Membership for the 2017 SJFS Season is $40 for an individual and $60 for a couple.
More about Edward la Borde
Edward La Borde, Jr., originally from St. Thomas, spent his high school years in New York where he joined the Navy. After four years of service he left the Navy in 1993 and decided to study film production.
While attending the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco, he established Afro-Flicks, a film production company dedicated to producing diversified images of people of the African Diaspora. Through Afro-Flicks, Ed developed and produced dozens of short narrative videos, music videos, and two short films– “She’s Too Mean to Me” and “Gumbo.” Two of his music videos, “Y” and “I Like,” won Top Music Video honors from the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame,
In 2000, he produced his debut feature film Me and Mrs. Jones, starring Kim Fields and Brian White, which won awards for Best Feature Film and Best overall Film from the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, Hollywood Black Film Festival, San Francisco Black Film Festival and Cinequest. The film also appeared at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, Urban World, American Black Film Festival, and the Pan African Film Festival. Me and Mrs. Jones is currently distributed nationwide and has sold over 300,000 copies to date.
SJFS is supported in part by the Virgin Island Council on the Arts and St John Community Foundation. For more information, contact the St John Film Society stjviff@gmail.com or visit www.stjohnfilm.com.
