History in the Making: Vincentian Cinema Takes Center Stage at AFI Silver Theatre
- Island Rebel
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — June 1, 2026
A Cinematic Glimpse at the Other Side of the Beach with Cultural Ambassador Akley Olton
Madulu, The Seaman — selected and funded by the IF/Then x Hulu Short Documentary Lab in 2021, the first Vincentian film on the Criterion Channel, and the first from St. Vincent and the Grenadines to premiere at Hot Docs — screens at AFI Silver Theatre, Silver Spring, Maryland on June 9 and 10, 2026. Co-presented by Her Excellency Ambassador Louanne Gilchrist and the Embassy of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, in association with the Organization of American States and the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital (DCEFF).
SCREENING 1 Tuesday, June 9 · 2:10 p.m. | SCREENING 2 Wednesday, June 10 · 6:30 p.m. + Q&A |
VENUE AFI Silver Theatre, 8633 Colesville Rd, Silver Spring, MD 20910 | OPENING REMARKS Akley Olton & Ambassador Louanne Gilchrist |
KINGSTOWN, ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES / WASHINGTON, D.C.
When Akley Olton was a young man in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, there was no Vincentian film industry to speak of — no funding body, no production infrastructure, and no screen anywhere in the world showing a story made by someone from his island. In 2012, he stood before the nation's youth at the SVG National Youth Lecture Series and made a public appeal: the creative industry of St. Vincent and the Grenadines needs to be built, and we must start now. Fourteen years later, his documentary Madulu, The Seaman screens at the AFI Silver Theatre in Washington, D.C., co-presented by Her Excellency Ambassador Louanne Gilchrist and the Embassy of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, alongside the Organization of American States — the first time a Vincentian film has been presented at this level on American soil.
The two-night event will bring together the Vincentian diaspora, representatives of OAS member states, Caribbean cultural organisations, and diplomatic guests. Director Akley Olton delivers opening remarks alongside Ambassador Gilchrist, followed by a filmmaker Q&A after the June 10 screening. The AFI Silver lobby will feature a curated showcase of Vincentian artisan and culinary producers, including Grenadine Sea Salt and SeaMoss Boss — connecting the film's themes of coastal heritage and identity to living, exportable products of the island's natural world.
"George 'Tall12' Frederick was one of the last keepers of our traditional sea shanties. His voice and his songs now live forever in Madulu. Together with the Barrouallie community, we are committed to developing the sea shanty tradition as a recognised cultural product of St. Vincent and the Grenadines — and bringing it to the world."— Akley Olton, director & Cultural Ambassador, St. Vincent and the Grenadines
ABOUT THE FILM
Madulu, The Seaman is set in Barrouallie — one of the last whaling communities in the Western hemisphere and the oldest European settlement in St. Vincent, founded in 1719. The film follows George “Tall12” Frederick, a legendary harpoon gunner and the last surviving keeper of the Caribbean sea shanty tradition, as he tries to pass his knowledge to his young nephew Amari Murray, who dreams instead of becoming a football star in Paris. Interweaving documentary footage with animated sequences drawn from Amari’s own artwork, the film uses magical realism to explore the tension between ancestral heritage and the pull of globalisation — and asks a question with deep resonance for the blue economy debate: who gets to decide the future of a people’s relationship with the sea?
The film screens alongside Kannan Arunasalam’s Possible Landscapes, an exploration of Caribbean environmental and social realities — together offering the diaspora and international audiences an unprecedented window into the lived complexity of Caribbean life, told entirely from within.
The presentation of Madulu marks a definitive five-year arc of institutional validation:
2021 | Selected and funded through the IF/Then x Hulu Short Documentary Lab — a competitive global programme for underrepresented documentary storytellers. A filmmaker from a nation of 110,000, without a national film fund, chosen by one of the world’s largest streaming platforms. |
2024 | Acquired by the Criterion Channel — the first time a Vincentian filmmaker’s work entered that archive of world cinema, streaming alongside Kurosawa, Sembène, Bergman, and Varda. |
2026 | Presented at AFI Silver Theatre, co-hosted by the SVG Embassy and the OAS, with the filmmaker delivering opening remarks alongside the Ambassador of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. |
THE HOME SOIL — WHERE THE FILM WAS SEEDED
Akley’s formation began at the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College under the mentorship of visual artist and educator Vonnie Roudette, who nurtured his raw visual instinct into a disciplined artistic philosophy. That creative awakening was recognised nationally when the late Governor General Sir Frederick Ballantyne awarded him a scholarship — funded through the philanthropy of British publisher and poet Felix Dennis, whose deep love for his home on Mustique made him a committed patron of Vincentian talent.
Armed with that foundation, Olton advanced to the University of the West Indies in Barbados, then received a Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines scholarship, facilitated through the ALBA Cultural Programme, to attend the International School of Film and Television (EICTV) in Cuba — founded by Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, Argentine filmmaker Fernando Birri, and Cuban leader Fidel Castro with the explicit mission of training filmmakers from the developing world to return home and build their own industries. That public investment in one Vincentian’s talent is today visible on the Criterion Channel, at Hot Docs, at AFI Silver, and in the curricula of British universities.
Returning home, Olton converted that investment into a public utility — developing heritage tourism products, launching filmmaking workshops for local youth, and working alongside the Garifuna Heritage Foundation to return ancestral storytelling to the community's hands. His film Black Doll (2018), made with an all-Vincentian cast, screened at Locarno and Los Angeles. SugarLands (2022), commissioned by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, is now part of Cardiff University’s decolonisation curriculum. In November 2025, the Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines appointed him Cultural Ambassador.
THE MENTORS — AN INTERNATIONAL LINEAGE
Akley Olton’s artistic vision was shaped by a lineage of masters who gave him both permission and precision — teachers who showed him that the Global South does not need to wait for validation from the north to make work of enduring consequence:
Vonnie Roudette St. Vincent and the Grenadines | Visual artist and educator at SVGCC — the first mentor who saw the filmmaker before the filmmaker saw himself, nurturing raw instinct into disciplined artistic philosophy on home soil. |
Moussa Sene Absa Senegal | Senegalese filmmaker and painter whose cinematic poetry, rooted in African oral tradition and visual music, showed Akley that beauty and political urgency are not opposites but the same force. |
Frances-Anne Solomon Trinidad & Canada | Trinidadian-Canadian filmmaker and founder of CaribbeanTales, whose fierce, structurally transformative storytelling and tireless work to build Caribbean screen infrastructure proved the industry could be built from within the region. |
Leandro Soto Cuba | Afro-Cuban visual artist and multidisciplinary practitioner whose profound integration of memory, ritual, and the African diaspora cosmos deepened Akley’s understanding of how Caribbean identity carries the world. |
Sonia Williams Barbados | Barbadian theatre practitioner whose radical, embodiment-focused approach to Caribbean performance language gave Akley a framework for translating the physicality and rhythm of island life onto screen. |
Los trabajadores, EICTV Cuba — the world | The collective spirit of the workers and faculty of the EICTV — who embody the conviction, passed from García Márquez forward, that every nation on earth has stories worth telling and people worth training to tell them. |
THE VILLAGE THAT MADE MADULU
Madulu, The Seaman is a deeply collaborative work — a Caribbean film made possible by a constellation of talent drawn from across the region and the world, and rooted in the knowledge keepers of Barrouallie itself.
WRITER, DIRECTOR, EDITOR Akley Olton St. Vincent and the Grenadines | CINEMATOGRAPHER & CO-PRODUCER Laura Sanz Spain |
SOUND DESIGN & RE-RECORDING MIX Victoria Mercedes & Homer Mora Dominican Republic | SUPERVISING PRODUCER, IF/THEN SHORTS Caitlin Mae Burke Field of Vision / IF/Then Shorts |
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Charlotte Cook Field of Vision | CULTURAL COLLABORATOR Omari France St. Vincent and the Grenadines |
SEA SHANTY RESEARCH & THE BARROUALLIE WHALERS Vincent Reid St. Vincent and the Grenadines | FEATURING George “Tall12” Frederick & Amari Murray Barrouallie, St. Vincent and the Grenadines |
Deep appreciation is extended to the Town of Barrouallie, the Barrouallie Whale Hunters, the Barrouallie Whalers Project, and every community member who entrusted their stories, their voices, and their sea to this film.
A CALL TO SVG AND THE CARIBBEAN — THE CREATIVE ECONOMY IS WIDER THAN THE STAGE
EDITORIAL STATEMENT FROM ISLAND REBEL MEDIA For too long, the conversation about the creative and cultural industries in St. Vincent and the Grenadines has been confined to the performing arts — music, live performance, and theatre. These are vital. But they are only one part of what we have. SVG possesses a deep and largely untapped creative economy: visual artists of international calibre, a literary tradition of rare depth and range, filmmakers already on the Criterion Channel, and heritage products — sea salt, seamoss, sea shanties, Garifuna culture, whaling history, volcanic geology — that the world has never properly been shown, because no one has yet built the infrastructure to show them systematically. The lobby showcase at AFI Silver — Grenadine Sea Salt, SeaMoss Boss, the film itself — is a proof of concept for what a coordinated, year-round national strategy could achieve. Tourism, culture, and heritage organisations must stop operating in silos and begin working together year-round to export our national identity and our products to the world. The goal is not to consume the world’s culture. It is to sell ours. The GOSVG scholarship through the ALBA Cultural Programme that helped train Akley Olton is now visible on the Criterion Channel and at the AFI Silver Theatre. That is the return on cultural investment. We call on our regional authorities to implement robust cultural policies, dedicated film funding bodies, and legislative frameworks that treat the creative sector as serious economic infrastructure — not decoration. We call on our business communities to invest in our films, our digital storytellers, and our heritage products as a high-return frontier. The world is watching. Our stories are ready. |
ABOUT AKLEY OLTON
Akley Olton is an award-winning filmmaker, visual artist, and founder of Island Rebel Media, based in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Alumnus of UWI and EICTV Cuba (GOSVG/ALBA scholarship). Prince Claus Seed Award recipient (2022).
Cultural Ambassador, St. Vincent and the Grenadines (November 2025)
Trustee, SVG National Trust
Member, SVG Reparations Committee (2024–2025)
Member, EU-LAC Youth Advisory Committee (2023)
Consultant, EU Youth Sounding Board for International Partnerships (2023)
Delegate, UNESCO Creative Tourism in the Caribbean (2022)
Delegate, Cross Continental Forum, Barbados (2024)
Judge, Sami Kafati Fund for Indigenous Filmmaking, Honduras (2024)
Judge, National Literary Arts Competition, SVG (2022)
About Island Rebel Media: A world-class film, audiovisual, and multimedia production company based in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, producing documentary and fiction films, television, music videos, and digital content for Caribbean and international audiences.
About IF/Then Shorts | Field of Vision: A fund and mentorship programme supporting short documentary storytellers globally. Madulu, The Seaman was selected and funded through the IF/Then x Hulu Short Documentary Lab in 2021.
ALBA Cultural Programme: The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America cultural initiative, through which the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines supported Akley Olton’s scholarship to the EICTV in Cuba.
Distribution: Madulu, The Seaman streams on the Criterion Channel as part of IF/Then Presents, Season 2 (November 2024–2027).
Media & Distribution Contact
Island Rebel Media — worldwide publicity & distribution
islandrebelmedia@gmail.com · +1 784 496 2487
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