Biography
I am also practitioner-researcher on Too Bla(ck)xx? The Trinbagonian Calypso and Soca Experience which traces the contradictions that shaped the life and artistry of Dexter "Blaxx" Stewart, exposing tensions within Trinidad carnival. We, my co-researchers Dr Kai Barratt (UTech Jamaica) and Associate Professor Alison McLetchie (South Carolina State University) have screened this documentary at international academic conferences.
Teaching and Contribution to University Life
My film education philosophy centres on collaboration and reflexive practice as shared inquiry, where intention is articulated, form interrogated, and creative production is both cultural labour and intellectual work. Using this philosophy, I led the restructuring of the BFA Film Production programme, approved in 2022-2023, wrote and revised courses embedding research-informed practice and strengthened alignment with industry needs.
I represented CARIMAC on FAQAC (2018-2023), continue to contribute to departmental publications, and support student recruitment and outreach initiatives.
Scholarly, Professional, and Public Service
I have secured competitive grant funding from the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Caribbean Export Development Agency, the Caribbean Development Bank, and the Caribbean Culture Fund. I am a programmer for the Regina International Film Festival and Awards and have accepted an invitation to serve as Internal Academic for the quality assurance review of the Film Programme at UWI St Augustine, 2026.
My work emerges from the conviction that Caribbean cinema has its own grammar. By making visible the ways we create – through collaboration, constraint, and lived experience – I seek to affirm Caribbean film aesthetics not as deviations from dominant models, but as knowledge systems formed through cultural memory and collective practice. Across my teaching, research, and creative work, I am committed to theorising Caribbean film production from within its own conditions and to exteriorising the methods through which we make, teach, and think cinema.
Research and Creative Practice
My scholarly writing contributes to film scholarship and creative research discourse. This includes Souse Theory: Theorising a Documentary Filmmaking Practice (forthcoming, Journal of Film and Video), co-authored with Yvette Rowe, which formalises a theoretical framework emerging from documentary practice. My sole-authored article in the Journal of West Indian Literature, Things You Lose in the Ocean: The Author, AI, and Caribbean Screenwriting, according to MacDonald and Edwards (2025), "breaks new ground" (p. vii) with its future-oriented intervention that examines the limits of AI in conveying Caribbean cultural specificity, introducing a replicable method for analysing authorship and narrative form.
My research interests – narratology, film, and visual design and communication – reveal that a significant aspect of my research is creative practice. My doctoral research, Plot Twist: A Practice-Based Media Arts Experiment in Screenplay Narratology, explores the creation of an alternative narrative film structure informed by the poetics of the calypso. I am also a practitioner-researcher on the Mapping Caribbean Cinema project led by Dr Rachel Moseley-Wood. Our first documentary The Ward Resisting Cinema (2024) functions as a research artefact that documents exhibition, memory and resistance within Jamaican new cinema histories. The film has been screened at international academic conferences and public events and has received official selection at regional film festivals.
Through these activities, my work contributes to Caribbean cinema and advance UWI's mission.
Rae-ann Smith (Rae-ann Renaud)
I'm a filmmaker, scholar, and storyteller from Trinidad and Tobago, now based in Jamaica. I've spent over fifteen years working at the intersection of cinema, culture, and education.
I currently serve as Lecturer and Programme Coordinator for the BFA Film Production programme at the Caribbean School of Media and Communication (CARIMAC), The University of the West Indies, Mona — where I oversee curriculum development, production resources, and undergraduate thesis films. Alongside that, I'm pursuing a PhD in Communication Studies, with doctoral research that experiments with alternative narrative film structures informed by the poetics of calypso. It's work that reflects something I care about deeply: theorising Caribbean film production from within its own cultural and industrial conditions, not from the outside looking in.
I'm a Fulbright Scholar, and I hold an MFA in Film Production (with an emphasis in Cinematography) from Chapman University and a BA in Mass Communication with First Class Honours from UWI Mona. My scholarly work has appeared in the Journal of West Indian Literature, the Journal of Film and Video, and publications by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, among others.
My filmmaking is rooted in the Caribbean and driven by questions that matter to me. I'm the creative lead on Mapping Caribbean Cinema, an ongoing documentary film essay series tracing the spatial history of cinemas across the Anglophone Caribbean, beginning with Jamaica. Two episodes — The Ward Theatre: Resisting Cinema (6 min) and The Ward Resisting Cinema (20+ min) — have screened internationally, including in Paris, Rio de Janeiro, at CARIFESTA XV in Barbados, and at GATFFEST 2025 in Kingston. I'm also co-producing and directing Too Bla(ck)xx? The Trinbagonian Calypso and Soca Experience, a feature documentary exploring the cultural, political, and industry dimensions of soca music through the life of the late artist Dexter "Blaxx" Stewart.
Before academia, I worked at the Jamaica Observer and at CVM TV. My thesis film Women In Hats screened at festivals across four continents, including the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival, the Africa International Film Festival, and the Samsung Women's International Film Festival in India. I've also served as Cinematographer and Production Coordinator for the UWI Mona Graduation Ceremonies on UWItv, Project Director for a regional Scriptwriting and Film Production Training Programme funded by the Caribbean Export Development Agency and the OECS, and as a Programmer for the Regina International Film Festival & Awards (RIFFA).
Beyond film, I'm a writer and photographer. My short story Last Minute was published in Anomaly #28, my poem How I Remember My Childhood received an Honourable Mention at the 2009 CANTEEN Awards, and my story Purgatorium was shortlisted for the 2016 Small Axe Literary Competition. My photography has been recognised by the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission and published in TRACK//FOUR Journal.