Local Filmmaker Bagging Multiple Awards

Lee-San Gayle is a twenty-year-old filmmaker from St. Andrew, Jamaica. She believes that the talent of creating worlds on screen can be one that brings much needed healing to the world. She is a professional director, videographer and cinematographer, working to produce visual and audio content that entertains, opens minds and changes lives. She has recently achieved a First Class Honours Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Film Production at the Caribbean School of Media and Communication (CARIMAC) at the University of the West Indies, Mona. In the past three years, she has produced, edited and directed short films, commercials, television interviews and music videos, working closely with local production companies and other known creative professionals. In her second year of film school, Lee-San wrote, shot, edited and directed her multi-award-winning short film “Sisters” that has been recognized both locally and internationally.

In her final year of pursuing her degree in Film Production, Lee-San was required to create a thesis film. With the support of over fifty young creatives and their companies as well as the support of the spaces and people connected to the University of the West Indies, she successfully created a 20-minute musical film called “Crazy Dreams.” It is officially the first Jamaican musical film to be shot in, by and about Jamaican youth as well as the first one to be screened on local, regional and international stages, winning the Best Musical Short Film Award in the 2022 Parai Musical International Awards, based in India, the home of beloved Bollywood musical films. “Crazy Dreams” is Lee-San’s favourite work to date, as it is her love letter to her country and her creative peers, and is the beautiful result of a dream she has had for several years – to see a Jamaican musical film with great Jamaican representation gain success around the world.

Lee-San’s work throughout the years has allowed her to gain success both locally and internationally, winning awards in the local Lignum Vitae Film Festival and the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) Fi Wi Short Film Competition, before going on to represent Jamaica in the largest international film festival in the English-speaking Caribbean, the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival. 

Her most upcoming venture is the Conch Shell International Film Festival (CSIFF). Presented by New York City-based Conch Shell Productions, CSIFF is a major online film festival that celebrates and promotes films and media projects of artists of the Caribbean Diaspora and in the Caribbean. This is a major milestone for Lee-San because unlike any other filmmaker in the festival, THREE of her films have been accepted into the international film festival. She is excited to have the chance to represent her country once more in a grand online film festival and witness three of her films celebrated in a single film festival for the first time in her career as a filmmaker.