Skimma has aspirations to leave his remote village in Trindidad, as he feels there is more to the world for him than what the village offers. When Rebecca tells him that she is pregnant, he has a decision to make. He can continue to make a plan to leave the village, or change paths and be there for his new family.
Why is the movie named Chee$e? Skimma (Akil Williams) works at a small cheese factory founded by a tourist that decided to stay in the village. Skimma starts making blocks of cheese in his own kitchen, where he hides the weed he started selling. When he puts the weed in the hot cheese and then cools it, it had different effects than typical dope, making it well known in the village.
Chee$e (the first movie in a planned trilogy, and winner of the Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Award at South By Southwest 2022) at first feels predictably like your classic movie about poor people trying to make some money off drugs in other countries. Skimma has an intensive-labor job: there’s a character that runs a store, one that runs a small restaurant, etc. Some people in the town are religious, some people partake in many substances, there is one “hippie” and one drug dealer with whom Skimma is starting to do business.
However, it’s the approach to the relationship between Rebecca (Yidah Leonard) and Skimma that will surprise you. The movie also takes a stance on the rampant police state present in many countries. Throughout the movie, the police confess to not having a specific reason for pulling Skimma and his partner in crime, Peter, over on the highway other than them looking suspicious, until they finally admit it’s just the color of Skimma’s skin.
While Chee$e has aspects that are not original, writer/director/cinematographer Damian Marcano has found ways to differentiate it from other drug movies. If you like movies about the war on drugs, you will more than likely like one, and it will open your mind to new experiences in the world.
Chee$e
Visions, World PremiereThis article appears in March 18 • 2022.