Michael Mooleedhar

Michael Mooleedhar (born 3 August 1985) is an award-winning Trinidadian director and producer, whose work includes documentaries, music videos and film. His first feature film, Green Days By The River, opened the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival in 2017.[1] Winning People's Choice Award best Feature Film Narrative and Best Trinidad and Tobago Feature Film 2017.

Michael Mooleedhar
Born (1985-08-03) 3 August 1985
Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
OccupationFilm director, film producer
Years active2008–present
Notable work
Green Days By The River

Mooleedhar’s directorial debut, Queens Of Curepe (2008), is a revealing documentary focusing on transsexual sex workers from Trinidad and Tobago and other territories in the Caribbean, who work in the streets of Curepe, a town found along Trinidad and Tobago’s East-West Corridor.[2]

Early life and education

Michael Kenneth Mooleedhar was born on 3 August 1985 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the son of Carol Mooleedhar (née Brewster), a librarian and Timothy Mooleedhar, a city planner. He grew up in the Trincity neighbourhood before moving to Glencoe, and graduated from Saint Mary's College (CIC) in 2006.

Mooleedhar attended the University of West Indies, Saint Augustine campus, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree (BA) in Film in 2009, and a Master of Arts degree (MA) in Creative Design Entrepreneurship in 2012.[3]

Career

Mooleedhar's first film, Queens Of Curepe (2008), was a critically acclaimed documentary that shone light on the world of sex workers in Trinidad and Tobago. The film was also met with concerns from Trinidad and Tobago’s Family Planning Association due to its content; however, Mooleedhar was able to work with the organization and allowed them to use the film for advocacy purposes. The FPA subsequently hired him to do additional projects for them.[2]

In 2009 he met his mentor and future collaborator Professor Patricia Mohammed and they worked together on Mohammed’s next project, Coolie Pink and Green (2009), for which Mooleedhar served as co-producer and editor. The film won the People’s Choice Award at the 2009 Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival.

In 2010, Mooleedhar and Mohammed came together again to work on Seventeen Colors and a Sitar, featuring Rex Dixon and Mungal Patasar, with Mooleedhar co-directing.[4]

Mooleedhar’s narrative short film The Cool Boys (2012) is an exploration of young man’s take of the reality around him and his attempt at expressing how he experiences life at this time.[3]

Mooleedhar returned to documentary film with City On The Hill (2015), this time exploring the city of Laventille in Trinidad and Tobago’s East Port of Spain. The documentary was praised for its understatement of the violence for which this neighbourhood is generally known.[5]

Mooleedhar's feature film directorial debut came in 2017 with Green Days By The River, an adaptation of the classic Trinidadian novel of the same name by celebrated author Michael Anthony that opened the 2017 Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival.[6]

Filmography

Film
  • Green Days By The River (2017)
  • City On The Hill (2015) - Documentary Short co-directed with Professor Patricia Mohammed
  • The Cool Boys (2012) - Short
  • Seventeen Colors and a Sitar (2010) - co-directed with Professor Patricia Mohammed
  • Coolie Pink and Green (2009) - co-producer with Professor Patricia Mohammed and Editor
  • Queens Of Curepe (2008) - Documentary

Music Videos
  • Tennille Amor feat. Bunji Garlin – I Want Your Love
  • Mark Hardy x Yung Rudd – Wuz D Scene w/ Justyn Mayers
  • Stef Kalloo x Mark Hardy – Dan It Up

Awards and recognition
gollark: I mean, yes, if you already trust everyone to act sensibly and without doing bad stuff, then privacy doesn't matter for those reasons.
gollark: Oh, and as an extension to the third thing, if you already have some sort of vast surveillance apparatus, even if you trust the government of *now*, a worse government could come along and use it later for... totalitarian things.
gollark: For example:- the average person probably does *some* sort of illegal/shameful/bad/whatever stuff, and if some organization has information on that it can use it against people it wants to discredit (basically, information leads to power, so information asymmetry leads to power asymmetry). This can happen if you decide to be an activist or something much later, even- having lots of data on you means you can be manipulated more easily (see, partly, targeted advertising, except that actually seems to mostly be poorly targeted)- having a government be more effective at detecting minor crimes (which reduced privacy could allow for) might *not* actually be a good thing, as some crimes (drug use, I guess?) are kind of stupid and at least somewhat tolerable because they *can't* be entirely enforced practically
gollark: No, it probably isn't your fault, it must have been dropped from my brain stack while I was writing the rest.
gollark: ... I forgot one of them, hold on while I try and reremember it.

References
  1. "ttff/17 opens with green days by the river", Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival, 2 August 2017.
  2. "Transsexuals, Black Caribs and Bobo Shanti", Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, 22 September 2008.
  3. "Mooleedhar, a film-maker with cool", Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, 13 September 2012.
  4. Julien Neaves, "From night ‘Queens’ to ‘Green Days’", Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, 24 January 2016.
  5. B. C, Pires, "Despite shadows, City on the Hill shines", Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, 6 September 2015.
  6. "‘Green Days By the River’”to openThe film opened the 2017 Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival. ttff/17", Daily Express (Trinidad), 3 August 2017.
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