John Welsman has recently completed the score for Jamaican director Mary Wells' dramatic feature Kingston Paradise, which will have its world premiere at CaribbeanTales Film Festival on Sept. 13Th. Shot in Kingston, Jamaica, it's an offbeat and compelling story of poverty and a couple's hopes and dreams for a better life.
“I was truly honored to have John Welsman agree to do the score for ‘Kingston Paradise’, a tiny low-budget film from Jamaica. To have a score that helped to tell a universal story rather than a totally local one, not just songs from the culture of the place in which the story is set, was very important to me. His wonderful work brought a depth to the film's story and drama that found music could not. The result is a beautifully nuanced film that isn’t necessarily representative of what’s ‘Jamaican' or 'Caribbean’, and yet, somehow, still is. The score solidified the three dimensional feeling of the characters and the intensity of a fictional reality that, as simply as it played and strummed, I found not only deeply moving, but helpful in creating a better understanding of my own story and film for me. Working with someone of John’s experience was an important and fascinating journey.”
Mary Wells
Director ‘Kingston Paradise’, August 18, 2013
Here's a piece from the score featuring Nyabinghi drumming recorded in Kingston. In the scene, police armed with machine guns raid the ghetto in search their suspect, and an uproar follows, until the police are finally repelled from the scene...