Murder Convict Is Released After 28 Years.
“WHY did you decide to do these programmes?”
“How do you determine which topics you will pursue? And what’s in it for you?”
These are the three questions I am most often asked. I chuckle, smile, swallow and then give a rehearsed speech about 17 years ago, a story of the homeless and social transformation blab la bla. But, there are nights when I lay on my court massaging my barely used pillow and cursing myself for leaving the automotive industry where I was the undisputed king, to embark on a course which surely isn’t financially rewarding and many times doomed by political dogma, but five years in I soldier on.
Antigua, Jolly Beach Conference Centre, Saturday August 22, 2015 10:21a.m. I sit before a panel of judges from the OECS & APCAG Screen Writers Workshop, trying to convince them to select my film out of 13 others from the OECS, Martinique and Guadeloupe to be awarded funding for production. I clear my throat and commence. “Sequestered,” is a legal short drama inspired by the life of a man who could easily be coined the Nelson Mandela of the Caribbean.
Set in 1987 in a Saint Lucian courtroom, twelve jurors with conflicting values and religious persuasions debate whether the stabbing of a known drug dealer thrown overboard by the captain of a small boat lost at sea was an act of self-defence or premeditated murder provoked by jealousy.
By the end of my presentation I beckon the judges to search their social consciences to allow this film to be made so that the world could know the story of Augustin Pierre and rally around him to see that this 74 year old man who had spent 28 years behind bars would be set free.
When the drum rolled I was wearing the disappointing face. This man’s story would never make it to the big screen. I was devastated.
Sunday August 23. I arrived GFL carrying a sack of bad news for the AllBiz Team who were so anxiously anticipating that after three years of scripting this film would actually be made. Being afraid of failure, I buried myself in work that would keep me away from them as I struggled with a contingency which would make it all right in the morning. But alas, none was forthcoming. Considering I couldn’t walk into Allbiz Studios to say I was a loser, I skipped the studio on Monday.
Sadly Tuesday I was not so lucky. While dressing and flicking the channels my eyes fell upon the impossible. There on channel 52 MBC TV: Yardie and Augustin Pierre. As the volume increased the tears rolled down my unsuspecting face with every syllable delivered in our Creole language, the realization that the man who had spent 28 years behind bars for the murder of Winston Gabriel AKA Tony Makeson, was finally free. I secretly whispered thank you Philip J. Pierre. Thank you Prerogative of mercy. Thank you Dame Pearlette.
At that moment when my private thoughts become vocalized, my teenage daughter walks in and says: “Just so, Daddy, you crying for a man on the TV?”
I couldn’t help but squeeze her and whisper there is still hope for humanity, there is still hope that St Lucians can forgive. There is still hope that we can be our brother’s keeper. There is still hope that despite all the challenges the UNTOLD STORIES crew navigates on a daily basis that tomorrow can come for some people. Of course sharp tongue Mikaela Elliott says: “But you never produced a programme on this man!” to which I replied: “Exactly!”
Had I produced a programme on him, he would still be languishing in prison like Stephen Mongroo,(the subject of my documentary “Am I my brother’s keeper”). Mikaela, I am so happy that I got a chance to interview Augustin Pierre behind bars and through hindsight and a small bird which shared words of caution I opted not to air his programme for fear of victimization.
I started by telling the judges in Antigua the main reason I participated in the course was to make the critical transition from documentary films into writing a full length screenplay, for the sole purpose of telling the story of Augustin Pierre to a global audience whom the Prerogative of Mercy would find hard to ignore. Little did I know that on Saturday 22 August 2015 as I begged for a grant, God granted me the ultimate wish. Thank you Prerogative of Mercy, Thank you Philip J Pierre and Thank you, God.