YouTuber happy to make int’l film debut

Actress and YouTuber Shaquana Wilson is overjoyed at making her international film debut in the Canadian-Jamaican film, When Morning Comes, which had its GATFFEST premiere last Wednesday at the Palace Cineplex in Sovereign Centre, St Andrew.

Looking totally different from the on-screen character who she played, Wilson walked the red carpet with confidence and was greeted with hugs and kisses from crew and cast.

In the Kelly Fyffe-Marshall directed film, Wilson plays Neesha, a young widow and mother of 10-year-old Jamal (played by Djamari Roberts), who she has decided to send to live with her mother in Canada because she wants a better life for him. It is a decision which is tearing the stressed-out mother apart, and which isn't made any easier by her son's unwillingess to go.

"It was my first role in an international feature film, but I am always doing movies for Richard Brown films on YouTube. I am a YouTuber also and do plays as well. My first play was called Money Moves with Bad Boy Trevor. I was introduced to the acting world at age 17," Wilson told THE STAR.

Wilson auditioned for the role more than one year before the project actually got off the ground, and she "thought that it was over" when she didn't hear back from the casting director.

"I was surprised when the casting director called me and said 'We are ready for you to do the movie'. I was like 'Which movie?'" she recalled with a laugh, adding that the journey was like nothing she had ever experienced.

"One of the things is that it was the first time I was working with an acting coach and without Donisha [Prendergast] I was lost. I knew that I had the emotions within me. I knew that I had this character within me ... or I could build this character... but I just didn't know where to find her. And with Donisha's direction, I felt so empowered. I felt like I knew exactly where I was going with everything. She laid out everything for me. I am so grateful to her," an excited Wilson gushed.

And watching herself on the big screen, while sitting among the dignitaries from the Canadian High Commission and GATFFEST, the cast and the crew, many of them from Canada, who had come to shoot the film in Portland and Trelawny last year, was a moment that she will remember forever.

"In all things, I am giving God thanks. The premiere was everything I thought it would be. The excitement ... the rush. I was trembling. When I was actually filming it, I didn't feel as confident ... but, watching myself on the screen, the emotions that I brought forth ... it felt so real, it felt like this was my life," she said.

When Morning Comes premiered in the Discovery programme at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival last September,and was shortlisted for the Directors Guild of Canada's 2022 Jean-Marc Vallee DGC Discovery Award.