"Saints", Dieter Deswarte, 2016. All rights reserved.“Once an airplane lands on the strip, our isolation will be… well, I guess, pretty much over. We will finally be linked into the big world.”
Saints begins with an excerpt from a radio broadcast, buzzing over a lengthy shot of the sprawling South Atlantic, the endless, choppy mass that surrounds the volcanic island of Saint Helena. Tony ‘Sidewinder’ Leo, the venerable presenter of a weekly show on Saint FM Community Radio, is addressing the ‘Saints’, the residents of the island, who are also the namesake of this new documentary from Dieter Deswarte.
It is these people – the dwindling yet spirited Saint Helenians – who are at the heart of Saints, which is a succinct, emotive and highly successful attempt to amplify their views and voices on a life-changing subject: the construction of an international airport at Prosperous Bay Plain on the east coast of their windswept island.
