Mahmood Patel, Barbados 

 :: Beneath the Skin ::

The Black Cube will be in the foyer of the Olympus Cinema throughout the Festival.

The Videographer:

FILM and VIDEO:

Director

Cinematographer

THEATRE:

Producer

Director/Writer

EDUCATION:

Editing Workshop, Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto, Canada 
Cinematography Master Class by Gerry Mendoza, Toronto, Canada
Cinematography 1 Workshop, Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto, Canada 
Directing for Film, New York University, New York
Creative Writing Workshop, University of the West Indies, Barbados
B.A. English Literature, University of the West Indies, Barbados

EXPERIENCE & WORK:

Producer of Cave Hill Theatre Workshop University of the West Indies 1999 –2003
Member of the Humanities Festival Committee, University of the West Indies
Director/Owner – Mood Flims Productions, Barbados

EXHIBITIONS

BENEATH THE SKIN – Video Installation, The Courtyard, U.W.I. Barbados  

ACHIEVEMENTS & AWARDS

Nominated to screen BENEATH THE SKIN at the Barbados Film Festival October 2003
Irvine Bergie Award for Creative Writing 2000 

Video Installation:

Beneath the Skin (2003)

Country: Barbados 
Running Time: 16
Language: English 

Scenario: it’s the last night of the first Festival of African and Caribbean Film in 2002, and organizers, film-makers and friends are celebrating.  Music plays, surf crashes on the rocks, people converse, but to one side two individuals are hunched over a table. One is Felix de Rooy, the celebrated director from Curacao, whose stunningly beautiful feature film, Ava and Gabriel, opened the Festival.  The other is aspiring Barbadian film-maker, Mahmood Patel. The table is covered in diagrams and Felix and Mahmood are oblivious to everything. A creative partnership is in the making. For the next two days, they are out and about, Mood with his camera and his deep knowledge of the local landscape. Felix leaves, and Mood completes and edits the footage and commissions an original soundscape from Anderson Cave.

Festival 2003: Beneath The Skin – video installation – enter an eight foot black cube – black plastic sheeting – black cloth - a pew – three monitors – triptych video images – abandoned church – dilapidated water tower – rusted tractor – boat hull – cave – sea rocks – grass – soundscape – headphones – 16 minutes long.

Meditative camera-work takes us ‘beneath the skin’ of the post-card stereotype, focusing on hidden and disregarded aspects of one of the most photographed landscapes on earth – Barbados.  By lingering on tiny details and accentuating light, texture and the material form of objects, the camera forces the viewer to look again at familiar or unconsidered things. These sensitively realised images, counterpoised by an arresting musical score, accumulate into a hypnotic meditation on time, change and metamorphosis.