What started off during 2020 as a letter-writing campaign for Tribe’s masqueraders to express their love to Carnival as if it was a person has evolved into a film that spans just over an hour. The film LAVWAY, orchestrated and executed in Trinidad by Tribe mas band, follows three siblings: Time, Carnival, and Savannah (the narrator of the story) on a mas related journey about this year’s missing sibling, Carnival.

Lavway is a term used to describe the call and response chant in the arenas of stick fighting. Valmiki Maharaj, Creative Director of ‘The Lost Tribe’, who is the brainchild behind the production explained:

“The entire production is structured like a lavway, scenes call to scenes and artistes call to artistes. Every nuance of this show is structured like a lavway,” he said.

He added: “The whole show is about survival, change and feelings which is the essence behind a lavway. The show is punctuated with lavway throughout, that being the language of our people, the sound of resistance and change, Carnival changes, the world changes around you but we are still strong”.

Like many businesses across the globe, Tribe’s business model had to get revamped to help ensure their survival during these critical times and they recently decided to go into film and tv production and hence LAVWAY their debut film.

LAVWAY’s team is hoping that the movie will be the first of many cultural films and will be featured at the 2021 and 2022 international film festivals. Even though it is the first of its kind, Tribe is looking to get nods of approval from streaming giant Netflix.

 

The cast of the film are:

Valmiki Maharaj – Creative Director

Muhammad Muwakil – Show Co-Writer

Lou Lyons – Music & Film Score

Ryan Gibbons – Director

Kendal Latchman – Technical Director

Bridgette Wilson – Lead Choreographer

Oliver Milne – Director of Photography

Shane Hosein – Assistant Director & Editor

Dylan Quesnel – Digital Imaging Technician, Editor

Peter Minshall – Artist, Mas Designer