Frances-Anne Solomon

Frances-Anne Solomon
Solomon in July 2012
Born	(1966-06-28) 28 June 1966 London, England
Residence	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Nationality	Trinidadian British
Education	Theatre, Television Production,Directing
Alma mater	University of Toronto
Occupation	Filmmaker, producer
Years active	1990–present
Known for	Film, television
Style	Television drama, Film, radio drama.
Website	http://francesannesolomon.net

Frances-Anne Solomon (born 28 June 1966) is a Caribbean British-Canadian filmmaker, writer, producer, distributor and entrepreneur. She lives between Toronto, Canada, and Barbados.

Biography

Born in England of Trinidadian parents, Frances-Anne Solomon began her professional life at the BBC in England, where she built a successful career as a producer, first with BBC Radio then with BBC television drama.^[1] She also produced and directed independent films through her company Leda Serene Films.

In 1999, she moved her company to Canada, where she continued to write, direct, and produce films, television programs, theatre plays, and new media projects.^{[2] [3]} In 2001, she founded CaribbeanTales, a charitable organisation producing, exhibiting and distributing educational multi-media projects based on Caribbean-heritage stories. The CaribbeanTales International Film Festival 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,^[4][5] CTFF also holds workshops and festivals in other territories, including to date Barbados, Belize, 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.^[6]

Early life

Solomon is the granddaughter of Trinidad and Tobago independence politician Dr. Patrick Solomon.^[7] 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. She moved back to Trinidad at nine years old, and attended the girls' "prestige" school, Bishop Anstey High School. At 18 she moved to Canada to live with her mother, and discovered a love of the arts, studying theatre at the University of Toronto's U.C. Playhouse, and poetry with Jay Macpherson. In 1986, she moved to England, to work for the BBC.

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 and Clarence Smith to the BBC Drama Repertory Company, producers Pam Fraser Solomon and Nandita Ghose, composer Dominique Le Gendre and writers Parv Bancil, Maya Chowdhry, Rukhsana Ahmad, Tanika Gupta 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'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 BBC, 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!, produced by BBC Films. Set in a Chinese laundry in Liverpool in the 1960s, it remains one of the only British films to depict the lives of the Chinese in Britain.^[8]

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!, produced with Claire Prieto and Vanz Chapman, was Canada's first multicultural sitcom, and starred Russell Peters 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.^[9] Frances-Anne is currently directing HERO,^[10] a hybrid feature, inspired by elements of the life of Trinidad and Tobago war hero, judge and jurist Ulric Cross.

CaribbeanTales

Works

References

External links

• Frances-Anne Solomon on IMDb
• Frances-Anne Solomon - Artist website
• CaribbeanTales - CaribbeanTales, Canada
• CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution
• CaribbeanTales 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