Michael Lees: "I wanted to show that in many ways, our little island could lead as an example."
Caribbean-British filmmaker Michael Lees went on a journey of self-discovery in 2017. In this interview with Karukerament, he talks about the definition of his Caribbean identity, his first feature “Uncivilized” but also his working process and his career as a young Caribbean man in the film industry.
Hello, Michael! Let’s start with the beginning. I know you’re from Dominica, but it says on your website uncivilized.com that you’re Caribbean-British and you graduated from UNC Chapell Hill in the States. Do you consider yourself Dominican or a part of the (Caribbean) diaspora?
My mother is Bajan, but grew up in England; my father is White-British from the Newcastle area. I was born in England and we moved to Dominica when I was 5. I consider myself Dominican, but with a mixed background such as mine, and with roots and experiences in multiple countries, I would often get the “Where you really from?” question around Dominica (which honestly was a fair enough question). I think over time I’ve become more assured in my adopted Dominican identity, but my Caribbean/ Caribbean diaspora identity is something that I’ve never had to question.
While studying abroad, have you ever struggled with defining your Caribbean identity or was it something you didn't even have to think about to navigate through your teenage years and early years as an adult?
I think the more challenging thing was defining myself outside of the confines of "Black American-ness". While there are overlaps, Caribbean culture and African-American culture have their differences, and often if you don’t fall neatly into a pre-existing group in America, people don’t know where to put you. I did feel the urge to celebrate my Caribbean culture and in my senior year at university temporarily resurrected the Caribbean Student Association.
So I get the understanding that you're a photographer/editor first. Am I correct? What made you decide to pick up a camera?
I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m a photographer first. From the time I picked up a camera I was interested in filmmaking, and documentary filmmaking. It just turns out that photography requires less resources than film/ video, and in my spare time I learnt more about shooting photos and photo editing and came to love it. I think it’s a good practice. Learning how to conceptualise, frame, light, and edit a photo is a skillset that is at the base of filmmaking. I often read about filmmakers I admire, and Stanley Kubrick for instance worked in photography before working in film.
My inspirations come from different places. My dad travelled a lot in his younger days and I grew up looking at his photos from around the world. I also had a period in my life where I was homebound for a while and I ended up watching so many movies, both fiction and documentary that I fell in love with the medium. I also think getting interested in philosophical questions early on spurred me down this path. I was searching for a medium that would allow me tackle different questions and present them to an audience. I can’t paint or play music, but I felt I still had a unique way of seeing the world and through film and photography, I could share that.
Did you know right away that “Uncivilized” would be a full-length documentary?
From the get-go, even before Hurricane Maria, the plan was always to make a feature documentary. I knew I had enough to explore that it wouldn’t fit in a short, and I also wanted to take on the challenge of a feature. My senior project in college was a 20-30 minute documentary about similar topics called Human +/- Nature, but from there I wanted to know how you build a story into a 60-90 minute piece, connecting all the pieces into a cohesive narrative.
How did you get prepared for this journey on a physical, psychological and spiritual level?
On a physical level, I feel like I was already fairly fit - I was hiking, swimming, playing football. I knew how to fish and catch crabs (skills you learn growing up in the Caribbean), and in order to learn more about subjects I knew less about, I sought out people with a deep knowledge base. Cyrille John, one of our eminent botanists taught me more about the plants I’d be dealing with, while David Burton in the Kalinago territory taught me how to make a fish pot, and another friend in the Territory taught me how to make a bird trap. I also bought a few survival/ bushcraft books, watched YouTube tutorials, and practiced making different things on the weekends.I even learned how to make rope out of scratch with plant fibres and coconut fibres.
Psychologically I was ready - I needed a change of scene; and spiritually, from the time I was in high school and discovered “the secret of mortality” I set off on a spiritual journey to make sense of it all, getting exposed to Buddhism, Hinduism, and writers like Ram Dass, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Eckart Tolle.
What kept you going in the moments of doubts?
Many times, knowing I’d committed to something in such a big way - I think that kept me going. I also am very passionate about the environment and spiritual searching, and I knew this was a project I had to carry out one way or another. The self-doubt was more crippling when I was just starting out, switching from a business major to a communications major late in the game. Going through that prepared me for the bumps ahead.
My other major motivation is searching for a societal framework that works for people in it, and the environment. Currently “developing nations” have used countries like the United States as a model, and as we are currently seeing in real-time, it is a deeply flawed system.
The scenes during the hurricane night were scary, but the most powerful moments for me were the scenes when you're back in the civilized world. As Caribbean people, we live on the constant verge of a natural disaster. I was so moved to see this resilience shown with dignity and respect whereas international news makes us look pitiful. Do you remember what was on your mind while interviewing people or shooting these scenes?
“Less developed countries” are often contextualised as “less than” their developed Western Counterparts. But I don’t buy into the narrative. I’m not saying that I’m anti-materialist or anti-development, but having lived between Dominica the UK and the US, I had the opportunity to see that we have some things in Dominica that money can’t buy, things that developed countries are scratching their head trying to get back to - fresh food, clean water, community, spirituality, and a mindset that allows us to move gracefully through hardship. I wanted to show that in many ways, our little island could lead as an example. And of course a central theme in the film is challenging the very notions of progress, development, and civilization.
You partnered up with Nikki Abban and Norris François. Can you tell us a bit more how you got to work with them?
Throughout my years studying, I constantly read about the pitfalls of directors editing their own films, being “too close” so they don’t have an impartial perspective. Norris is one of the best editors on the island so it was great having another trusted pair of eyes to work on the project. We knew each other from high school days, but reconnected in 2016 when I was working as a writer and cameraman for CBN4 and he was working for Sheldon Casimir's UNITE Caribbean. I worked with Norris and Sheldon through U.N.I.T.E Caribbean on Uncivilized. Here’s his edited video of the first Carnival post-Maria in 2018.
The partnership with Nikki happened organically. We met through my ex-partner who’s in the film, while I was on my one year-post college visa extension in New York, and we remained friends. Nikki had previously been working for a documentary production company in NYC. When I got out of the forest and told her about the project she eagerly jump on board. She really helped me turn my philosophy paper into a film.
That said, I took an active role in the edit and production. It somewhat blows my mind to imagine directors completely delegating the edit to someone else, especially in a film as personal as this. Documentaries in many ways are created in the edit room.
Did you get the reactions you were hoping for with this film?
I’ve been blown away by the reactions, they’ve been so overwhelmingly positive - in Dominica, internationally and online. It’s an honour to feel that I have been able to put words to our shared experience and to proudly represent Dominica in a positive light.
Did the COVID-19 affect your promotion strategy? What's your take on the role of digital marketing to develop the Caribbean filming industry?
COVID-19 absolutely affected our promotion strategy. A lot of festivals got postponed or cancelled. After talking with the Third Horizon and Studio Anansi team, we decided that launching online while COVID was going on was the right move. There are so many crossover lessons from Maria to COVID - issues of food security, community, resilience - seeing the difference in reaction between small island nations and metropolises… We thought it a perfect opportunity to get a conversation started. And of course, people are at home with time on their hands. That doesn’t hurt.
Now let’s talk a little bit more about your definition of Caribbean culture. If you were to introduce someone to Caribbean art, who would you recommend?
The notion of Caribbean art or Caribbean cinema is a tricky one - both a useful concept and potentially limiting. I would recommend my good friend Kaz “H.G.” Fields from Barbados who made an appearance in Uncivilized. He works in mixed media, tackling issues that affect the Caribbean, the Caribbean Disapora, and Western Society at large such as foreign policy, civil rights and the war on drugs, often working in a comic or surreal psychedelic style. Moreso than ever, his work is particularly pertinent, what with the race riots currently taking place in America.
I think there’s this notion that Caribbean art has to focus on our beautiful scenery or specifically on overtly “Caribbean" elements of our culture. But as Caribbean people the "Caribbean-ness" will always be in our work, whatever direction we decide to go in.
What are your upcoming projects?
I recently edited a music video for a really dope song called “Coronavirus” by Abiyah (IG: @abiyahmusic), a local reggae artist - the song was released on Reggaeville, and on June 13th I’ll be making my music video directorial debut with another amazing track called “Doucement” by a local band called Tropikal (IG: @tropikalmuzik). It’s contemporary Caribbean, pulling on Caribbean sounds but with a voice distinctly of its own.
I’m also taking a script-writing course with FilmCo of Trinidad, with the hope of finishing my first screenplay this year, and I have a photo series based around Maria that I recently submitted to an exhibition, which I’ll be posting on my IG at some point (@mike_please)
Bonus question: what comes to your mind when you hear/read the word Karukerament?
Sauerkraut hahaha. I guess I need to think of it in a French accent… Carousel?… Carefully? I’m not going to google it until after this interview.
Thank you again, Michael Lees. You can follow him on IG (@mike_please).“Uncivilized” is streaming at studioanansi.tv. Make sure also to check out my review here.