St. Lucian born Parisian fashion and TV celebrity, model, Next Top Model judge, and actor, Vincent McDoom in front of the official KICKBACK poster wearing Lisi Liu. (Photo: Marc Binninger)

St. Lucian born Parisian fashion and TV celebrity, model and Next Top Model judge, Vincent McDoom has put another first on his list, and this time with his co star acting role in the first French film to come out in e-cinema and be screened at Cannes. KICKBACK will premiere on the internet Friday, June 5th.

The dramatic comedy centers around Jackie (American actress Lee Delong) and Josepha (Vincent McDoom) who live together. Jackie is a caucasian psychiatrist and Josepha is a black transgender. 50 million Euros have been stolen. Jackie is going to put in place a few shock therapies to find them. In her way are a host of crazy characters who will test her suspicions and paranoia with sex, lies and corruption. Josepha helps Jackie but is expecting two things in life: the love of a charming prince, and the hope of giving birth one day!

Although the film will not hit theatres the director, Franck Phelizon is confident about the film’s online-exclusive release saying, “It has been a fascinating experience to release Kickback in e-cinema, a new thrilling way of sharing art. Production and distribution must be adapted using more and more internet facilities. The release still benefits from the same promo standards as a theatrical release.”

KICKBACK premiered at the 68th annual Cannes Film Festival (Le Festival International du Film de Cannes) and McDoom wowed the crowds on the red carpet and about town with his always classic style. ”I was honoured to represent my country St Lucia at the greatest film festival in the world,” said McDoom, whose character Josepha also left St Lucia to go to France in the film.

“In France Josepha meets Jackie and a very strange love-hate relationship ensues,” said McDoom who took acting instruction from his co star Lee Delong, the film's lead. "Vincent is very sensitive and decisive, which are two important qualities for an actor," said Delong. "It was a great adventure for both of us."

The cast of KICKBACK on the the red carpet at Cannes International Film Festival. Left to right: Vincent Mcdoom, Peter King, Franck Phelizon, Lee Delong and composer Fabian Levy Strauss

TheBahamasWeekly.com caught up with McDoom for the following interview:

TBW: Was this your first acting role?

McDoom: KICKBACK is my second movie. My first acting role was in Paris selom Moussa. I had the second lead role and it won many international awards including Best Film at the Fespaco Cinema Awards, a Unesco Film Distinction award and it was nominated for a Quinzaine des Réalisateurs award at Cannes in 2002.

TBW: Tell us about your roll? How did the opportunity come about?

The movie role was offered to many actors after a year-long casting period to find the right person to bring Josepha to life. It was a last minute suggestion by French movie director Andre Techine who is a friend to KICKBACK director Franck Phelizon. I went in for a screening and came out Josepha.

When I met the director Franck and the producer of UPL Films, Alexandre Piot - the feeling was right, and the timing was right. When I was informed that I would also be co-starring with my favorite French actor, Daniel Duval I knew it was a golden opportunity. Sadly Daniel died of cancer 5 months after filming.

Being cast into this role was very unexpected and a bit scary. With a background in TV and reality TV the experience was challenging for me in many ways, but it was also a way to prove myself in cinema circles and with the film critics. I think I've shown I still have many surprises.

I play a very broken and submissive Josepha, a would-be abused prostitute turned secretary; all very opposite of who I really am, yet Josepha left his mother and his native island home of St Lucia (similar to me). Josepha follows his dreams of becoming a woman, of finding love, and he is obsessed with the idea of giving birth to his own child. That said, he is also someone everyone can relate to. Josepha is the Cinderella of the film.

TBW: When you heard the film was to screen at Cannes how did you feel?

While filming the movie I suggested to the producer Alexandre Piot that the film was Cannes material and he said it's not an easy task to get into such a big film festival like Cannes. When I was informed that we were going I was knocked off my chair! The reality really hit home when I saw the KICKBACK poster plastered all over Cannes during the duration of the festival. There was of course the initial stress of getting a good hotel, the perfect dress and shoes, but all that fell into place.

SCENES FROM CANNES: Tastefully chic - effortless glamour (Photo: Cedric Dougs)

TBW: Talk about your red carpet experience and your outfit on Kickback’s screening night?

The red carpet was not a stress for me as I had done it before with my first film. My only stress was finding the perfect look. I did not want to follow the crowd and to look like Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé, Kardashian, and all these fashion models with the nude dresses. I wanted it all to be elegant and tastefully chic with effortless glamour. I wore a Franck Sorbier dress and shoes by Gucci. My hair was done by Pierre saint Server and makeup by Celine Dubos both of L'Oreal France. I think my look was well received as the international press thought it was a sensation and a good choice. The walk down the carpet with the cast and director was like icing on the cake after the filmmaking experience.

TBW: You always seem to represent your homeland of St. Lucia no matter what you are participating in. Why do you feel that is important?

I love my country even if my country doesn’t seem to understand me. St Lucia is in my blood so I take her everywhere I go. Whatever I do I am also conscious of how blessed and lucky I am to have gotten this far and I think of those I left behind who are as equally talented. It's my way of sharing my experience with them and it’s my way to encourage them onward. It would be disastrous to witness them giving up on their dreams, be it in fashion design, modeling, music, theatre, journalism, television or the movies...

Our authorities, advertising and media companies are selling St Lucia in a very has-been manner internationally, they are sitting on already acquired markets and will not venture or take the risk with new markets. They seem satisfied with what they have had for years in the Caribbean market the USA, Canada and London and will not open up to what's new. They insist on selling sea, sex and sun to fill hotel rooms, but what they fail to realize is that St Lucia is not the only destination which offers this paradise post card and that if tourist keep coming back to our shores it's because of our people first and foremost.

I love what Barbados has done with Rihanna, what Trinidad has done with its carnival and its fashion industry marking its creatives like Heather jones and Claudia Pegus. Or what Jamaica did with Diana King and Tessanne Chin. That is my modern vision for marketing St Lucia and it's creative industries. We have Nina Compton, Shane Ross, Keen Mecca, Tangie Marla, Lucianna Maxwell, Darren Sammy or even myself, but that goes unnoticed for some reason and St Lucia can't seem to make her creatives shine internationally. I hope for a changing mindset to better export our talents.

Since the Cannes red carpet, McDoom's image is hitting much of the European press. In this photo McDoom is wearing a Franck Sorbier dress. (Photo: Cedric Dougs)

TBW: What are your feeling about Bruce Jenner's coming out?

Wow, Bruce Jenner. I am extremely proud of him and all he has had to endure to become who he thinks he was supposed to have been. I can feel his pain when he says he does not belong to the body that he was born with, and that duality is not an easy battle to live with on a daily basis. At some point you need to make peace with yourself and what you feel is right. It's not easy changing, and it will affect his life forever, but it's the way it's all received in this ever changing world which is his hardest task. He has the support of his love ones and that's the best way to start... He will help those who are living this pain in silence... Making it all public so they can then find some hope and see the light at the end of that long dark tunnel... Want it or not, we have to learn to accept that transgender exists and it's not just a fantasy. We have to live with it, and learn to embrace it without looking down at it with disgust. It’s exactly like coming to terms with plastic surgery for beauty and aging purposes which is now seen as an external sign of richness and well-being.

TBW: Have you ever done anything surgically to make you look more feminine?

I have never given any thought to becoming a woman for I am proud to be a man, and am happy to empower women in this ever-changing modern world. I am proud to say I am 50 years old and I have never touched any part of my body surgically to make me look feminine. All I have is God-given and I am very conscious that not everyone is a predisposed. I am not one to judge or to compare. To each his own, that is what makes humanity so richly diverse.

I am happy, and if my loved ones accept me, then the rest is no concern of mine. I live for me and not for the approbation of others. ‘I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you're not in this world to live up to mine,’ is my mantra.

Jackie and Josepha (Lee Delong and Vincent McDoom) "Vincent is very sensitive and decisive, which are two important qualities for an actor," said Delong. "It was a great adventure for both of us."

TBW: Will you do more acting? What's coming up next for you?

Yes I take much pleasure in acting, and I already have two theatrical plays lined up, and another film I am reading for at present, but my TV work and fashion director work is still very dear to me also. I hope one day to professionalize the fashion industry in the lesser Caribbean Antilles as Jamaica had done with its creative industries.

Africa is calling, as many countries there are interested in me and my expertise in fashion and in the television business...

Vincent McDoom left St Lucia in his late teens to follow his dream of being a fashion designer. He schooled at ESMOD, a French private school of fashion founded in Paris in 1841 by the master tailor Alexis Lavigne. His training included internships with Paco Rabanne, Guillemin, Talenzi, Guy Laroche and André Walker, following which he worked as an artistic director for the fashion house of Louis Vuitton. After that he started his own TV show presenting fashion and has been a judge with the Russia’s, France’s, Poland's and Germany's Next Top Model.

Check out Vincent McDoom’s performance in KICKBACK which has already been translated in many languages and can be viewed via E-Cinema starting Friday, June 5th here at www.kickback-lefilm.com

Director’s notes: My film reflects the human nature which is trying to evolve in a drifted and shifted world, like the angled camera method I used to tell this story. Kickback shows us the human condition with its phantasms and obsessions. The human finds himself in front of a deformed mirror which reveal our inner nature, magnifying on the absurd and shifted, which differ from the essential values of our society. I really wanted to put into light the forbidden and absurd.

Allowing us to be ourselves without barriers and show what society has banned us from...My plan was to put in evidence the absurdity of our behaviours, more and more vicious and perverted, looking in a mirror that can apply to anybody, and refute its own primitive nature. In Kickback, time evolution is not destroying things, it is present time. The uncontrollable present days in which anything can go wrong, where my characters are trying to give a sense to their lives, with a hope to succeed, to find a destiny, a path, a sign for their own life.

Looking forward McDoom says Africa is calling... (Photo: Cedric Dougs)