Caribbean Tales Film Festival 20th anniversary opens with legendary Anguillan musician and businessman Bankie Banx documentary
September 3, 2025
Not everyone is a suit-and-tie person.
More than just okay, it is necessary as society thrives on a diversity of roles, including artists.
At a young age, Clement ‘Bankie Banx’ Banks knew he was not cut from the same cloth as his siblings who are academics and professionals.
Victor Banks Jr. is a former Premier of Anguilla, Ernest ‘Val’ Banks is a career banker and former Cricket West Indies vice-president, Dr. Oluwakemi Linda Banks is a clinical psychologist and Member of the Order of the British Empire, Ken Banks is a civil engineer and their late sister, Gloria Banks, was a teacher
Their father insisted his youngest son follow the same well-worn path.
Victor Banks Sr., an agriculturalist, died in 1963.
“Our father had a good job running the agriculture department in Anguilla and he wanted his kids to be professionals,” said Banks. “I resisted and he did not like that. One day when I came home, he had a pen and paper out, trying to teach me arithmetic.”
With her son in tears, Banks’ late mother – Kittitian-born Marjorie Banks – stepped in.
“She pulled me away from him, saying, ‘He is not like the rest of them and leave him alone’,” he recalled. “She showed me a piece of artwork on the wall and said, ‘Be like your cousin who is an artist’. Mom rescued me by giving me paper and crayons. That was a defining moment as it reaffirmed what I wanted to do. I knew from a very young age there were other ways for me to express myself and be successful.”
Drawn to music at an early age, Banks built his first guitar at age 10, joined a band three years later and abandoned a prized government job to become the first Anguillan to have a successful career as a full-time musician.
With the release of his first album, ‘Bankie Banx and The Roots & Herbs’, in 1978, he pioneered reggae music in the Eastern Caribbean.
After spending five years in London and Paris and eight years in New York, Banks returned to Anguilla and opened the Dune Preserve, a beach bar crafted from driftwood and repurposed materials, as a permanent home for the Moonsplash Music Festival which is the longest-running independent music festival in the Caribbean.
He and bandleader Robert ‘Sheriff’ Saidenberg founded the festival in 1991.
Banks’ riveting life story, a journey marked by defying expectations and forging his own path outside the academic mould his father revered, became a documentary that will open the 20th annual Caribbean Tales Film Festival (CTFF) in Toronto on September 3.
The 118-minute film, ‘Bankie Banx: King of the Dune’, paints a colourful portrait of the iconoclastic musician and provocateur whose unlikely career spans more than five decades.
Artist and businessman Gordon Woodward is the executive producer and Nara Garber is the director/producer/editor.
Visiting Anguilla in 2019, Garber thought it was going to be her first and last time.
She and Woodward were English majors at Harvard University and part of the same a cappella group.
Knowing how much Garber loves music, Woodward invited her to attend he and his wife’s joint 50th birthday party at the Dune Preserve.
“I looked at the invitation, not realizing it was a destination birthday until a few days before the event,” she recalled. “When I got to Anguilla, I thought the Preserve is the most extraordinary habitat that Bankie had created and hearing his music in that context was remarkable. I got to hear Bankie perform and it was an incredible experience. It was magical and I literally tried to imprint everything in my memory, thinking I would never see this place again.”
Little did she know that Banks had mentioned to the Woodward’s a month earlier that he had finished a first draft of his memoir.
Knowing the artist and businessman’s life would make a compelling documentary, Woodward turned to Garber to collaborate on the project.
The first shoot took place in February 2020.
“That was just to make sure that Bankie and I would have a good working relationship and that we could come away saying this is something we would like to move forward with,” said the Brooklyn-based filmmaker. “Bankie was a challenging, but intriguing subject during the four-day test shoot. He is so accustomed to steering his own narrative that we scuffled daily for directorial control, and his steady stream of unsolicited suggestions illustrated a truth mentioned in almost every interview. I left Anguilla exhausted, injured having sprained an ankle following Bankie as he leaped across a ditch and hooked.”
After filming started, there was a test screening of the rough cut in December 2023. A sneak preview for the Anguillan audience took place in July 2024 followed by the film festival circuit.
“This was a four-year process because of the pandemic,” Garber, the daughter of late artist Don Garber who is credited with making one of the first practical direct-coupled single-ended power amplifiers, pointed out. “Almost all of the filming took place in Anguilla and the people who play significant roles in Bankie’s life still live on the island. I shot four interviews in my living room, pointing in four different directions. It worked for me because those people were passing through New York or lived there.”
She and the film crew travelled to Guadeloupe to interview Banks’ first tour manager, Nicole Peraud.
“That was during the pandemic and we did about six COVID tests to get to her before she headed to India,” said Garber who directs and produces educational and advocacy videos for non-profits and arts organizations in New York City. “Nicole was travelling from New York to Sint Maarten on a sailboat that got caught in a storm. Despairing she would never make land, she turned on the radio and heard Bankie’s big hit, ‘Prince of Darkness’. She fell in love with his music, made it to Sint Maarten and saw Bankie and his band perform the next night. She was so intrigued by the band that she rented a place in Anguilla so she could get to know the band better.”
In 1984, Peraud collaborated with the band to create a music video and took them on tour in England.
Living life on your own terms often means following your own vision, values and pace which can sometimes make collaboration tricky.
What was it like for Garber and Banks to work together on the project?
“It was a delightful challenge,” she said. “He was the mastermind of how he appeared and how he wanted his story to be told. There was always a push and pull in a fun way. Bankie has lived such a long and rich life and many people don’t know all of it. They might be familiar with periods, but not the full story. Almost everybody we interviewed is somebody Bankie had to lead us to because no one person knows the entirety of his life. If I had just gone to a few people for interviews, it would have been a widely incomplete portrait. Without Bankie’s full participation, this film could not have been made.”
Dividing her time writing, directing, editing and shooting, Garber launched Lucky Penny Pictures, a solo enterprise with an emphasis on social issues documentaries.
“I am trying to educate people about a social issue or trying to find a human narrative that will make people care about that issue,” the freelance cinematographer said. “Making this movie about Bankie was like going on a magical, mystical ride with someone who marches to his own beat and is his own drummer. I felt like I was holding on to dear life with Bankie in the driving seat. At times, I had to remind myself that I had to grab the steering wheel.”
Though set in his ways, Banks understands the power of collaboration.
“I have always recognized you can have your way and yet draw on others’ strengths,” the film’s associate producer said. “When I started music, I was not the guy in front. I emerged from being the youngest player to be the bandleader. I understand the process of learning from others and growing along with getting input from others.”
Ensconced in his business and music in Anguilla, 71-year-old Banks doesn’t travel much.
Upon learning his documentary was selected to open the CTTF, he decided to make the trip to Toronto for the first time for the landmark event.
There was another compelling reason for Banks to come to Canada’s second-largest city.
The last of his 11 children, Judah Banks-Liburd, is a Canadian Armed Forces member.
“I always wanted to come and see him, and this was a great opportunity to do that,” said Banks, the father of Omari Banks, who is the first Anguillan to play Test and One-Day International cricket for the West Indies.
What he hopes people take away from the documentary is that it's okay to be yourself and that there is always another way to live, create, and succeed outside the expected path.
“If you don't believe in yourself and your ability to achieve, no one else will,” said Banks who writes his music and was the first non-Jamaican invited to perform at Reggae Sunsplash.
Though the Dune Preserve has been damaged by several hurricanes, Banks has no intention of packing up and leaving the legendary spot that CNN voted #1 Best Beach Bar in 2013.
“That is the place where I get a lot of my creative energy from and where I feel most at peace,” he said. “Walking the beach and collecting stones and driftwood keep my thought process going. I also enjoy being on the beach because I am a nature lover and environmentalist at heart.”
For creatives, the juices are always flowing.
The 1967 Anguillan revolution is still etched in the mind of Banks who was 14 years old at the time.
Becoming part of the associated state of St. Kitts & Nevis, Anguilla rejected the union and declared separation following a referendum known as the Anguillan Revolution.
After talks failed and Anguilla unilaterally declared independence, the United Kingdom sent in law enforcement to restore order. In 1971, Anguilla was placed under British rule.
“I want to make a movie about that period because it was an incredible time and I have a lot of stories,” said Banks who started the Project Stingray music and arts education program in Anguilla in 2005. “It was a struggle for self-determination, but no shots were fired and no one lost their lives.”
He already has a title, ‘Fires of Freedom” from his album ‘Still in Paradise’ released in 1999, and a soundtrack, ‘The Battle’s On’ written in 1975, in mind for the movie.
Banks, a close friend of American singer/songwriter Bob Dylan who he first met in 1982, has planted a seed in Garber’s mind about working with him on the project.
“Bankie pitched the film to me while on a boat with people he wants to be in it and I thought I might as well agree as we are out at sea,” she said. “He told me it would be much easier than the documentary, but I reminded him we are talking about a period piece that will require serious pre-production. There is a section in the documentary with archival footage of the Anguillan Revolution which people like because they are unaware of the events that took place.”
Clement ‘Bankie Banx’ Banks and Nara Garber (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
The Canadian premiere of ‘Bankie Banx: King of the Dune’ is at Studio Theatre, 235 Queens Quay West.
Trinidadian Mandisa Pantin is the CTFF program coordinator, heading a team that selects films for the annual festival founded by Frances-Anne Solomon.
“Bankie Banx is well known throughout the Caribbean and a mythical figure,” she said. “What we were looking for on opening night is something that represents festivals which he does well on his island. More than that, his story fascinated us. We know about his music. But when we looked closely at his backstory, it was fascinating and relatable.”
Over the 175 films the committee reviewed, 48 were chosen for the festival that ends on September 13.
