March of the Mokos wins Toronto film prize

March of the Mokos tells the story of Glen “Dragon” De Souza – one of TT’s unsung heroes – who revived the moko jumbie after a severe decline in the 1970s.
Produced by the Carnival Institute of TT, the 24-minute documentary examines the moko jumbie from its suspected beginning in the Moko tribe of West Africa to its spread to other parts of the world.
It contains footage of moko mas and stilt walking, interviews with De Souza and some of the people he inspired, and of De Souza’s interactions with his students. It also featured the spiritual elements of the moko mas, how De Souza affected the lives of youths, and the joy of foreigners when they learn to stilt-walk.
The high quality of the production and hard work of the institute’s staff were rewarded on September 20, when March of the Mokos was awarded the Caribbean Spirit prize at the 2019 Caribbean Tales Film Festival in Toronto. 
Dr Kim Johnson, director of the Carnival Institute, explained how the idea for the documentary came about. He said the institute often hosted students from American universities doing Caribbean studies and they are often taken to De Souza to experience stilt-walking. In 2017, the staff of the institute decided to make a five-minute video to introduce students to moko jumbies before they were taken to Dragon. The video came out so well that they decided to expand it into a short film for the 2018 TT Film Festival.
Johnson said De Souza started a moko jumbie camp, the Keylemanjahro School of Arts and Culture, for at-risk youths in Cocorite in 1985. Because of his work – personally and through his students – the moko jumbie spread all over Trinidad, so it was no longer something just for Carnival. People did stilt-walking for fun, and moko jumbies began appearing at weddings, Independence Day celebrations and more. Moko jumbies have been displayed at the British Museum, appeared at the Wall Street Intervention in New York in 2011, and were even featured on Sesame Street.
“It has been extremely successful. Now we have had Kings and Queens of Carnival being moko jumbies. What’s equally amazing is that moko jumbies spread to the US, spread to Europe because of him. People from all over come and learn at his camp...So it all started, directly or indirectly, from Dragon.”
For example, he said Jhawhan Thomas, Peter Minshall’s 2016 Carnival king who portrayed The Dying Swan: Ras Nijinsky in Drag, was a student of Dragon.
In addition to the TT Film Festival and Caribbean Tales, March of the Mokos was screened earlier this year at CaribbeanLens International Film and Art Festival in Hollywood. The point, said Johnson, was to share it with as many people as possible.
“I wanted to get it in Caribbean Tales because a big Caribbean community attends that festival. So we submitted Mokos, I paid for it, they accepted it, they screened it, and we won.”
He said a lot of work went into the film as the makers paid great attention to detail, especially in the editing and soundtrack, which helped to tell the story in a way that would make it interesting and even exciting to others. He believed they succeeded, as the film was sold to a TV station in New Zealand even before it won the Caribbean Spirit prize.
He said when Moko won, there was a small celebration at the institute’s offices in Belmont.
“It is important because we tend to be ignored. We have problems getting equipment, getting money to operate, so the acknowledgement that we produce high-quality products is an important feather in our cap so that we can begin to have a bigger impact.”
Johnson stressed that the mandate of the institute is to collect information and artefacts, archive them, and disseminate knowledge on TT Carnival and its culture. Students go to the institute for information, its staff give lectures, and it hosts exhibitions.
“Because we are kind of understaffed, I thought the best way to educate people is through film. You show a film and 1,000 people could see it. If you give a lecture, it’s 25 people. And young people, they are into film. They’re not going to a lecture or reading any book. So when I came here four years ago I shifted the focus to film.”
These films are shown in schools and film festivals, and universities often request copies for educational purposes. Johnson said the institute also assists people in making films and because it promotes TT, it ensures the productions are very high quality.
The institute recently started working on a series on the history of Carnival, including steelpan, mas, and calypso/soca. He said it also developed a proposal for a Carnival museum which they were invited to design at Fort San Andres, South Quay, Port of Spain by the Ministry of Culture. In the interim, however, the institute hopes to create one at the “penny bank” on Duke Street which was donated by First Citizens.
Source: Newsday, Oct 6, 2019