Inna De Yard goes int’l
A documentary by British director Peter Webber, focusing on veteran reggae artistes, has been picked up for major international distribution. Inna De Yard is the name of the project which features artistes such as Ken Boothe, Winston McAnuff, Cedric Myton and Kiddus I.
Variety Magazine reports that French company Charades presold the rights to several top distributors including MFA, a Berlin-based company which has promoted films such as the Oscar-nominated Elle.
Inna De Yard was picked up after 10 minutes of it being shown at the Berlin European Market in February. It also attracted distributors from South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and the Middle East. The Variety report did not state when Inna Di Yard will be officially released.
Webber, 49, was in Jamaica in late 2016 doing interviews and filming recording sessions for The Soul of Jamaica, an album by a collective known as Inna De Yard. He has impressive credentials, having directed the 2003 film Girl With A Pearl Earring which starred Colin Firth and Scarlett Johannson.
Girl With A Pearl Earring earned three Oscar nominations including for Best Art Direction. His next film was the horror epic Hannibal Rising, released in 2007.
Webber’s credits also include directing the acclaimed television series Six Feet Under. He is the latest British film-maker to being involved with a documentary with Jamaican music. In 2012 Kevin MacDonald, best known for the Oscar-winning film The Last King of Scotland, released the well-received Marley.
The Soul Of Jamaica contains songs by the aforementioned acts, as well as Lloyd Parks and Stephen Newland of the Rootz Underground band. It is distributed by Chaper Two Records, a Paris-based independent company run by Frenchmen Nicolas Maslowski and Romain Germa.
Ten years ago, Maslowski and Germa launched the Inna De Yard music company with McAnuff. With veteran session guitarist Earl “Chinna” Smith as musical director, that collaboration yielded a number of acoustic albums by stalwart artistes including The Congos, The Viceroys, Junior Murvin, Linval Thompson, and Kiddus I.
Those albums were marketed and distributed by (now defunct) Mackasounds Records, another company operated by Maslowski and Germa.
Boothe, McAnuff, Myton and Kiddus I led the Inna De Yard group on a European tour in April 2017 to promote The Soul of Jamaica.
