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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nDanielle Dieffenthaller died last night after a prolonged battle to maintain a dignified presence in this space. A tussle with systems that has made our finest creatives migrate. Despite the possibility of migration beyond the ecosystem problems that could have robbed local audiences of seeing more of her filmed art and vision, she survived the last few years just waiting for things to align so that she could see many other days. Our systems for public healthcare and creative industries survive on meagre terms, on paltry sums, on the decisions of circumscribed minds that have to live with limited potential for improvement.<\/p>\n
A kidney is a most precious organ. Replacing a kidney is a privilege that not many can afford or imagine. Biology and medicine make the likelihood of a perfect match much less than a sure thing, but a possible thing. The availability or unavailability of reagents used in transplant operations to test compatibility with a donor\u2014such as blood typing, tissue typing, and cross-matching\u2014can mean go or no-go for a procedure. The stories of Danielle\u2019s ups and downs in her fight for life untethered from a dialysis machine have been told. We stood in solidarity, in silence, in awe, in anger as we witnessed setback after setback in this seemingly perpetual struggle. Could a liquid ledger and a metropolitan medical institution have avoided this day of sorrow? Could an adequately funded and managed local system\u2014enough surgeons and staff, no delays, enough hospital rooms, available reagents\u2014have made today just another Sunday with Danielle producing films? One is left to wonder.<\/p>\n
Our lives here are not a TV show where cases are discovered and treated successfully in one hour. This is real. This is sad. Her life and her work reflected an indifferent local reality and the sometimes-altered reality that is filmed entertainment. Her life was touched and affected by struggles to make sense of both. She was a champion of the creative sector. A pioneer who created sustained television entertainment that was global in its significance and spread, yet local in its aesthetic. She had been furtively accused of focusing on Caribbean middlebrow culture\u2014\u201dthose people [\u2026] allyuh\u201d\u2014fictive fantasies of people living in Goodwood\/Westwood Park, \u201csoapy operas\u201d and melodramas of white and white adjacent expatriate hotel owners and tourists juxtaposed against Black criminals in reef-bordered paradise. Our predilection for imported images and stereotypes, however, nullifies those accusations; popularity sells in cinema and television, and our audiences have made up their minds in droves.<\/p>\n