Screened as part of NZIFF 2010

Wah Do Dem 2009

Directed by Sam Fleischner, Ben Chace

Indie rock hipster Sean Bones goes with the flow on the beaches and backroads of Jamaica in this smart and funny comedy about a skinny New York white boy trying to cut it in a Rastaman world.

USA In English
76 minutes

Directors, Screenplay, Editors

Producers

Sam Fleischner
,
Katina Hubbard
,
Ben Chace
,
Martha Lapham
,
Henry Kasdon

Photography

Sam Fleischner

With

Sean ‘Bones’ Sullivan
,
Norah Jones
,
Ira Wolf-Tuton
,
Kevin Bewersdorf
,
Patrick Morrison
,
Sheena Irons
,
Carl Bradshaw
,
The Congos
,
Mark Gibbs

Festivals

Vancouver, London 2009

Elsewhere

Unfolding to a backbeat of chilled Jamaican pop, Wah Do Dem is a smart and funny account of everything that goes wrong (and a few things that go miraculously right) for a Brooklyn indie rock hipster alone in the Caribbean. Dumped by his girlfriend (Norah Jones), Max (Sean Bones) leaves New York on a cruise ship full of jolly retirees. Fleeing for his life at Kingston, he dons his lime-green Ray-Bans and opts to go with the flow on the beaches and backroads of Jamaica. Devised and shot on little more than a backpacker’s budget, the film is as fresh and unpredictable as every new day of his travels. As Max is pulled way outside his comfort zone, white boy self-awareness and a very Anglo mortification at relying on feckless locals vie with the sheer elation of partying in the moment. Jamaica sure looks like paradise, and the film is graced with a prophetic Rastaman intervention from a compellingly trippy Carl Bradshaw, veteran of The Harder They Come. — BG