Jazz Pitcairn’s ‘Ivan’ has won best score for an international film, at the Garden State Film Festival for ‘Force of Nature’, composed by Fadi Khoury and performed by Khoury and Pierce Constanti.
“I was so excited to hear that our score really resonated enough to be nominated, let alone, win(!!) such a prestigious award,” Pitcairn, the short film’s writer and director told the Compass via text. “I’m so thrilled for Fadi and the entire team who now get to say they worked on an award-winning film!”
Pitcairn, 25, who was unable to attend the festival, called it “a wonderful collaboration” working with Khoury on the nine-minute film that depicts the life-changing events of Hurricane Ivan, which devastated the Cayman Islands in September 2004.
Pitcairn recalled the pair first met at New York University and were randomly paired to work together as an exercise for a school project in 2020.
“I told him about the Ivan short film, and he immediately wrote a piece of music that resonated with me. We stayed in touch and when it came time to figure out the music for the film, I reached out to him again.
“Before we even shot the film, he and I spoke at length about the style, and feeling we wanted the score to have. Something foreboding with a nod to Caribbean music and instruments. He wrote a piece of music just based off of our conversations before even watching the film. It was so beautiful I ended up using it over the end credits of the film. He then wrote the music in the film once it was completed.”
The film was also screened at the Garden State Film Festival. In addition, it had previously been nominated for a 2023 Hollywood Music in Media Award for best score in a short film (live action).
Pitcairn said she was “so thrilled” for the inclusion at the Garden State, which was held 21-24 March.
“The festival is known for sharing untold stories and supporting emerging filmmakers. It is truly an honour to be included.”
Film co-producer Badir Awe, who attended the screening of the film at the festival, said, “Ivan was very well received.”
“There were lots of questions about it. People were very intrigued about that hurricane. A lot of people remember Ivan, so it was very interesting to them. They were also impressed with the film and how we managed to flood a house.”
He added, “There was a lot of interest around the film which was great. We also drummed up interest in Cayman as a filming location/destination for them to think about in case they ever need a Caribbean island to shoot some scenes, a reality series or movie… It was pretty cool to get both of those things done.”
Awe said he was proud of Pitcairn for taking on “a very impactful project”.
“At such a young age to write and direct this film, I think is an incredible testament to her. Very talented individual and the first one to put Ivan on a narrative film. Jazz is a very good writer and good director, and she’s written now the feature film to Ivan.”
He added, “Everyone who worked on the film had a relation to Ivan. It’s the one thing all Caymanians can look back on and [know] we all shared that together, we had our own experiences with it, so working on set with everyone and everyone retelling their Ivan story, I think was just a great, awesome community, creative building moment.”
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