FREE JAH CURE FREE SHAMIKA FREE JAMAICA

From Cyberlaw

A SET reality strategy for Jamaica, a story for Jah Cure and Shamika to live:

1. Story Treatment:

SET is producing a feature film of the story of "Jah Cure and Shamika" with the message of Jamaica restorative justice.

A beaten-up taxi bounces down a pot-holed Jamaican road, blaring, "What am I longing for?" through its tinny stereo. The driver, humming along, turns and says, "He's the greatest. Jah Cure, Jamaica's biggest injustice." And in time with the music, whines, "Babylon release the Cure."

(Cut)

Shamika, beautiful and vulnerable, with her mother in a market, drops a package. A young man, a stranger, emerges out of nowhere, picks it up and hands it to her with a smile, his face coming into her space, surprising her, making her afraid. She steps behind her mother. The guy doesn't understand but accepts and smiles, hands the package to mom and walks away. Mom turns to Shamika and hugs her, comforting. Shamika weeps and says "i am so ashamed."

(Cut)

General Penitentiary, Tower Street, scene upon scene of the places and the men giving a sense of crowded isolation, against the music of jah cure singing prison walls but we don't see him recording it in the SET Lab until the titles end.

This is the lead for our treatment, which follows the life story of two people, shamika and siccaturie. Our story integrates their separate stories, weaving between them until they come together in the end. Metaphorically speaking, each is raped three times, rises above it three times, and in the end is redeemed.

Shamika is raped physically when, as she is walking home from the Flamingo Club in Montego Bay just after midnight she and her girlfriend and their two male escorts are accosted by two guys who drive up in a Toyota Starlet and rob them, scare the escorts off, then abduct the two women to a remote dark place and rape them. Shamika is metaphorically raped a second time at the trial of the rasta reggae singer she identifies as her assailant, degraded by having to testify, which she does reluctantly under pressure from her stern uncle, a police captain who behind the scenes has managed the investigation and prosecution. She will feel raped a third time years after the trial when she is forced to resist pressures to admit that her identification at trial was mistaken.

Siccaturie likewise is metaphorically raped three times, first when he is arrested and falsely accused, second at his trial where his defense is a joke, and third, at GP, where he serves seven years and goes through a process first of being victimized by his outrage and then of finding himself, coming to terms with his reality and finding once again true reverence for life.

Shamika and Siccaturie each go through three doors of perception and growth. Each is forced to come to terms with the ambiguity of truth. Each develops a love/friendship relationship through which character is tested, struggles and achieves growth, Shamika with the young man who helped her with her package, Siccaturie with his prison buddy, Serano. Each is blessed with mentors, Shamika with her mother, Siccaturie with Kevin and Hurricane. Each ultimately faces the need to understand the past and let it go. Each emerges from personal prison to see and sing that life is paradise.

The stories weave monomyths of vulnerability and heroism. The Cure recognizes that the judgment against him is valid, whether he did the crime or not, on the ground that the case against him was strong and the need for tough and effective Jamaican rape laws is currently great, a perspective that at least explains even if it does not warrant the imprisonment of the occasional innocent. Guided by Kevin, who teaches SET theory within the prison, and by his mythic father Hurricane who comes to GP to speak at a SET conference, his consciousness expands to see that we are all the products of our circumstance and that blame lies with society, not the individual (“if all of us are not victims, then none of us are”).

Likewise the heroic monomyth for Shamika, from physical degradation through trial and pressure from the free jah cure movement, through crisis of truth and doubt and redemption when he is released on parole, even as the story ends with the actual truth uncertain. Shamika's story weaves into the jah cure story until the two are brought together in the end. He issues a public plea eloquently urging peace and respect for women and particularly for Shamika. He sends her a signed note saying "peace and respect" which she receives and ponders. Seeing she has a proud life to lead, she goes through her last door, sending him a signed note in return reading just "peace". We never see them meet, unless we saw them together in the first rape scene in which Shamika's assailant was never clearly seen.

These stories of (alleged) sin; doubt, guilt and ultimate redemption will be reflected in both the film and the “Making Of”. Equally, the story will call for radical prison and criminal justice reform, both prosecution and defense: prisons should not be the hell they are because the sins of the guilty are our sins and some innocents dwell therein; prosecutors should learn that solid proof protects everyone, inadequate proof leaves verdicts uncertain, justice undone; defense attorneys should see themselves as the last bastion against false imprisonment; and parole must be based on fitness to society and not remorse, which the innocent cannot feel.

After crossing the threshold from hell back to earth, Siccaturie and Shamika achieve capacity to communicate their wisdom through song, teaching Jamaica and the world the need for radical reform in attitude and behavior toward women and the accused,toward self and nation and what it means to be independant, upright and strong. We will all profit from this boon.

Jah Cure is the island's fastest-rising reggae star, despite his conviction for raping, and robbing, a woman at gunpoint, for which he is serving 12 years in prison. His first album, which was made by smuggling recording equipment into his tiny one-man cell, went on general release in the UK and US. His next album will be recorded in the SET Lab at GP as part of S=SET Rehab Through Music, production of which is coordinated with our film. Serano is a surpassing talent and truly Jah Cure's friend.

2. Goals:

a. Tell a story of Jamaica Restorative Justice to Jamaica and the world;
b. Storyline and execution infused with authenticity and inspired values
c. Blazing soundtrack;
d. Budget Range: $500K - $3 million
e. Development of project as a Net phenomenon, financing, developing, marketing all integrated in a strategy to tell a good story in a way that makes it real.