With a severe dengue fever outbreak, Nassau shuts down. Hospitals are full. People have to stay at home with their families. Tourism is halted.
Track Road Theatre (TRT) and No Budget Productions (NBP) present "Affliction", a short film that follows Noah, Sidney and Emily, who are searching for food and clean water, while trying to avoid being quarantined or coming in contact with this deadly strain of dengue fever, which causes mind-bending pain, delusions and fits of rage.
On the heels of Collage Entertainment's "Get Charlie" and the emergence of two Bahamian television shows, "Gippy's Kingdom" and "It Takes a Village", "Affliction" continues to feed the hunger that Bahamians have to see their own stories on the big and small screens.
In late 2011, TRT approved a co-production with No Budget Productions that matched their mission of commitment to community and industry. By partnering to produce "Affliction" on a micro-budget, TRT says it is explicitly exploring the commercial options for making film a viable local career choice. From local showings to festivals to video on demand, one of TRT's main goals is to see what works and why, and then share what they learn with the burgeoning local film community.
"We feel this movie is significant not just for us but for Bahamian film in general because of what we were able to do with next to no budget," said "Affliction" Director Matthew Kelly. "Some great Bahamian films have been made, but the best of them have been with budgets in the hundreds of thousands and up. They've also used foreign crews and actors to great effect, but we wanted to show a solid micro-budget film could be done here with local talent and crew. Our goal now is to find out how to take this talent and its product and create a sustainable industry."
The production budget for "Affliction" is listed as just shy of $1,000, not including investments in equipment and marketing. According to Kelly, it costs around $20,000 to make a short film like "Affliction" and around $50,000-$60,000 to make a feature film.
"We're only really starting to build an audience for Bahamian film. Bahamians love them and support them but it's not as easy to get the word out as it will be in, say, five years when Bahamian film will be much more well-known and anticipated," said Tara Woodside, producer and a principal in No Budget Productions.
"[TRT's] take is that while we should be telling our own stories for our own people, the market here is too small to bear a film industry," Kelly pointed out. "So you have to look outside for long term sales and sustainability. And one of the things that
requires is that you meet international standards... The novelty of Bahamians supporting Bahamian film because it's Bahamian as opposed to because it's good film is going to wear off in the next couple of years."
TRT is hoping that by increasing the output, production groups can improve on the production process and share their experiences with other groups. In turn, collaboration and integration between the different groups, which can sometimes want to go off on their own, is essential.
While Kelly and TRT are hoping to generate interest in Bahamian films, members of the Bahamas Institute for Motion Pictures are putting together a series of short films entitled "Bahama Stories" to showcase emerging Bahamian filmmakers.
In conjunction with the Bahamas Actors and Filmmakers Guild, Kareem Mortimer, Matthew Cromwell and Tyler Johnston are working with a small team of mostly volunteers to highlight the Bahamian experience. The group is hoping the project will be a model for independent moviemakers while demonstrating that the craft of filmmaking can be done professionally without relying on flashy gimmicks, expensive equipment or big budgets.
This project and future work by various local production groups are generating public interest in local film and television programming, which Kelly and TRT hope will mean more opportunities for filmmakers to bring Bahamian experiences to life on the big and small screens.

o "Affliction" (TRT, NBP) and "From This Day Forward" (NBP) can be seen February 27 & 28 at Galleria Cinemas, JFK. Find them on Facebook or at www.AfflictionTheMovie.com.

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