St Lucian and Caribbean director Michelle Serieux has been celebrated at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland after winning two prestigious Open Doors awards.
Both were for her upcoming film project, a supernatural thriller called Black Madonna, directed and produced by Michelle through her production company Imagine Caribbean.
The first award presented, the Open Doors – OIF – ACP – EU Award, will provide Michelle with “a mix of story editing and co-production strategy support, advice on developing and refining the film’s portfolio, based on needs specific. of the awarded project”.
The second prize, the “Open Doors – Moulin d’Andé-CECI Award” offers a “writing residency to an emerging filmmaker who participated in Open Doors 2022 (Hub, Lab or Screenings), enabling them to continue working on writing and developing their project”.
Michelle Serieux is the only director in that group from the Caribbean and the first St Lucian director to win these two awards.
Michelle is particularly excited about the residency with a prestigious cultural institution in France, a major source of inspiration for new wave writers.
The Locarno Film Festival’s “Open Doors” initiative has a new three-year focus dedicated to giving Latin American and Caribbean film projects an opportunity to reach out and engage industry players present at the festival in Switzerland .
Michelle Serieux, who lives in Mamiku on the east coast of St Lucia, has an MA in Film and Cinema Studies from Columbia University (Hons in Narrative Strategies for New Media). She earned a BA (First Class Honours) in Media and Communication, Drama and Cultural Studies from the University of the West Indies.
Michelle Serieux is a writer/director/producer and founder of Imagine Caribbean, a boutique production company focused on presenting unique screen stories about the Caribbean.
The latest non-fiction project is Don’t Come Searching, an international collaboration with Canadian director Andrew Moir, which recently had its world premiere at HotDocs 2022.
Current projects in development include the supernatural thriller Black Madonna and a hybrid new media project Virgin and the Whore.
Michelle is happy to be back home in Mamiku where her production company is based. The award-winning writer and director looks forward to working from St Lucia for the foreseeable future.
