At a press conference held this past Wednesday by the owner of Yeh Man Entertainment and the founder of the Bahamas Film Festival, Celi Moss, the name of the new movie his company is presently working on for next year’s Bahamas Film Festival that is scheduled to take place May 20 through 29 was revealed.
Balls Alley is the name of the movie that Moss says is an urban romantic drama with a gangster flavour. “It’s all about this guy who is trying to come up in the game but he is being torn between doing wrong and getting rich and doing right and staying poor to salvage the love of his wife and kids,” he says.
The enthusiastic up-and-coming producer says that his new movie differs in comparison to the first movie that he made – My Old Man, that premiered at the First Annual Bahamas Film Festival as well as aired on ZNS TV13 – because it has a gangster flavour to it. But, he states, “It is really the same in terms of content because like the first one, it talks about love, right, wrong, things like that which are universal themes.”
Started from scratch
Moss said that the idea for the movie ‘kinda’ grew’ and evolved out of a small film that “focused and reshaped itself and became Balls Alley.”
“I think that this movie will be well-received because of the love story that runs through it, the legal story that runs through it and the father-son relationship that is in it,” Moss said, anticipating that it will set the standard for new movies coming out of The Bahamas.
Asked if he felt a great deal of responsibility as amovie-maker, he replied, “As far as the responsibility, I don’t feel such a big responsibility from outside. The only responsibility that I want is to encourage more people to do it because that is why I started the Bahamas Film Festival.”
Casting call
Moss also revealed that he will be holding a casting call on Saturday Oct. 23 in the Exuma Room of the British Colonial Hilton Hotel from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
In an effort to take his new movie to another level, Moss says that he needs to have good actors, actresses, lighting persons, directors and lots of other crews that may wind up amounting to 100 persons.
“So if you are interested in movie-making, come out, if you fat, skinny, pretty, ugly, conservative, model what ever, I have room for everybody,” Moss smiles.
Real life depiction
Over the last year since starting the Bahamas Film Festival, Moss has assembled a fantastic crew of young men who will be playing various roles in the making of the movie.
Valentino Josey is acting as the location director as well as an actor on the movie. Josey says, “This movie is going to be a real good movie because it is going to have a lot of real life stuff in it. It is based on everyday living; you are going to see some of the stuff you read about and see on the news. We want everybody to come out and support it.”
Local talent abounds
Also on hand was Devron Pinder who is in charge of props for the movie along with his cousin, Scharad Pinder. “We work in conjunction with Mr. Josey to make sure that when the actors get to the site all of the props are in place. I would like to take this time to thank Celi for assisting us with doing our own thing. Dip Light wants to invite everyone to come out and support Yeh Man Entertainment because it is Bahamian.”
I am appealing to the Bahamas Film Commission and others who are reading this, to realize that we have talented Bahamians here in the Bahamas who are qualified. But when the producers come to the Bahamas to make their movies, the cast and most all of the other jobs are already gone and we just get the little jobs that are left. But I just want to say that we have people here that can make some of that money and can use the experience,” said Julian Lord, the man in charge of lighting as well as an actor in the movie.
In addition to all of the cast and crew Moss is also taking the location of the movie to another level. “I want to shoot some scenes in Miami, I want to shoot some scenes in Jamaica, I want to shoot some scenes in Freeport, this a serious movie we are shooting, I have not seen anything like it on the market,” Moss says.
When the movie is completed, it will look like it cost $10 million dollars to shoot, he laughed.
The Nassau Guardian
