Lesley-Ann Wanliss achieves film festival sweep with short film ‘Bright Sparks’

Lesley-Ann Wanliss is having a moment. Her latest short film Bright Sparks has been widely lauded and selected by so many film festivals that it’s difficult for the filmmaker to keep track.

As she spoke with me for our interview on a relaxing Saturday morning, Wanliss greeted the day by getting to work.

“I had to wake up this morning and sort through some things for the festivals cause it’s nuff of them,” she said when I asked her for a breakdown of the festivals. “Let me bring up the list.

“So far we’ve been to Films That Move, which is a local one, and I’ve been to Screen Share at the CaribbeanTales [International] Film Festival. The next one on the list [was] the Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival. Then, in October, I’m doing the Caribbean International Film & Fashion Festival at the Caribbean Film Awards in Wilmington, Delaware. Then I have Conch Shell International Film Festival in New York, then the Mind Mosaic Film Festival in Maryland, and the Negril Universal Film Festival, then the Black Travel Film Festival in Milwaukee, and the 284 Excellence Film Festival in the British Virgin Islands,” Wanliss told Sunday Entertainment.

In total, nine festivals across the United States and the Caribbean have selected Bright Sparks for their programmes. It’s an achievement that’s enough to fill any filmmaker with pride, but Wanliss’ biggest concern is how to be in several places at once.

“Three festivals are showing at the same time. The one in Delaware, the one in New York, and the one in Negril. That is the major lesson that I’ve been learning: where to show up and what festival will have the most impact on the future of the film.”

A film festival is an outlet for showcasing a film, but it also provides networking opportunities and can serve as a springboard to the next stage of a filmmaker’s career. In making her decisions, Wanliss has three criteria she uses to determine her movements.

“There [are] three things I use to determine which festivals I should go to, besides vibes. One of them is [the] size of the festival, two is how organised the festival is ... and also, is there something attached to the festival like a film market, or a workshop? Are there gala events I can go to and meet producers or financiers for the next step. And the final thing is, does it really align with what I want my film to do?”

Despite her systematic approach, the decisions still weigh on the filmmaker. Thankfully, she has her years of experience in film festivals to keep her mind on what matters.

“Working on The Shot List Film Festival, The Black River Film Festival, and going to Berlinale international film festival (Berlin International Film Festival) made me very aware of what the festivals are doing, but, for me, it started with the selection process ... . Where do I think the film would fit?”

In determining what festivals to submit the film to, Wanliss says she started to think of Bright Sparks as fitting within three separate identities. One as a Caribbean film, another as a mental health film, and then as a film directed by a woman.

When it came to the CaribbeanTales Film Festival in Toronto, the festival’s promising reach, because of the hybridisation of online screenings coupled with in-person screenings, influenced her decision to attend in person.

“That appealed to me because it’s a wider audience that includes online screenings, which is something I’m nervous about, but it means more people seeing the films.”

Conversations about grief

In all the excitement, Wanliss says she never lost sight of what led her to make the film in the first place.

“I wanted to serve people in the mental health profession so that they can use this film to have conversations about grief. That is extremely important to me. After this festival run, the first thing we’re going to do is have conversations with psychologists. We’ve already started those conversations already about creating screenings for communities within Jamaica and the diaspora,” she said.

The plans don’t stop there. After the short becomes available for all, Wanliss says, by that point, she intends to have finished development for a feature film, one that follows where Bright Sparks left off.

The filmmaker plans to keep her same cast, and gives herself a five-year timespan to help support that ambition.

“We’re going to follow them five years later ... because we can’t talk about grief without talking about the past, the present, and the future, so the feature will do that part of the conversation about the future.”

At the tail end of our conversation, I asked Wanliss what it is about Bright Sparks that she thinks has garnered all this success.

“I think it’s just how Jamaican and how authentic the story is. As a storyteller, I pride myself on being a Caribbean storyteller, but I also pride myself on telling stories as I see them.”

With Bright Sparks, Wanliss found a way to weave humour through her story of hardship, giving her characters humanity and relatability as they work through their struggles.

When dealing with the topic of mental health, it can be easy for the story being told to be hard to watch, but Wanliss had a simple rule she relayed to her cast and crew: No tears.

“No matter what happens, we’re not having any tears. We have to find other ways to relay the stress of the experience ... . We don’t need tears for what’s heavy, because we live with it daily.”

With nine festival selections under her belt, Wanliss believes she’s had more acceptances than rejections with her festival applications, and now looks to the future for her next phase.

“In my head, I’ve broken this down to the exhibition phase and the distribution phase. Because it’s a short film, I want to make sure there’s a place where people can have full access to the film, and maybe even a place where we can earn back at least some of the festival submission costs.”

Wanliss says the film’s availability is likely to come around the time of July 2027, as she awaits a response to her last festival application.

entertainment@gleanerjm.com