Emmanuel’s fifth movie and latest movie, Shantaye’s World, presents Shantaye as a sassy, precocious and irrepressible child growing up carefree in idyllic 1950s rural St. Lucia, surrounded by a caring and loving community and circle of friends and the doting love of her father and paternal grandmother. But as Shantaye enters her teen years, tragedy struck and punched a hole in her idyllic world.
Nonetheless, in the middle of the tragedy, as if by magic, she finds true love. But it is a forbidden love opposed by both her father and her community and her beau’s mother. So not unexpectedly, in an attempt to break up this bond of love, her father ships her to London where she became part of the mass West Indian post World War II migration to the UK. A phenomenon that was coined the “Windrush Generation” in reference to one of the vessels—MV Empire Windrush—that brought the West Indians to their new home.
However, just when Shantaye was coming to terms with her new home and wondering whether she will ever reunite with her beau, tragedy struck at home, forcing her to return home. But, the only question is, has she returned too late to rekindle her love?
Shantaye’s World is a delightful and engrossing coming-of-age and love story that, like Emmanuel’s previous movies, is full of laughter. It provides a window into how life used to be in St. Lucia’s not too distant past. By capturing some of the emigration experiences of the Windrush generation, the movie is timely because recently the UK government was mired in scandal when it erroneously deemed members of the Windrush Generation illegal immigrants and threatened them with deportation. In Shantaye’s World, history has come full circle.
Perhaps, recognizing the significance of the movie as a period piece, Emmanuel didn’t stop with just a movie. Unlike her previous movies, she wrote a novel to accompany Shantaye’s World. The novel, also called Shantaye’s World, is by some accounts a bestseller.
One suspects the novel will be on hand and available for purchase at Caribbean Cinema for the movies special showing on February 19 & February 22, a double your pleasure St. Lucia 44th Independence Treat.
