Maya Cozier

In an all-white futuristic room, I sit upright with a fake smile plastered across my face as a cosmetic doctor gives a talk on the “science” of beauty. Her first tip, which I may never wipe clean from my memory, is that posing with your head tilted slightly downwards, to look diminutive and vulnerable, exudes fertility and gives men the message that you’re demure, helpless and in need of protection.

Maya Cozier Maya Cozier’s debut feature,She Paradise, is out now through Samuel Goldwyn Films. Cozierwas raised by artist parents — Irenée Shaw and Christopher Cozier — in the Caribbean twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago. She gained years of experience working as a dancer/choreographer for music videos and television shows (on her own and as part of a champion hip-hop crew that represented the island at the World Hip-Hop Dance Championships).

A young woman is desperate to be a soca dancer to escape a dead end life. She botches her first audition with the dance troupe but uses her wit to convince them to take her under their wing. The girls bring Sparkle into a life of partying, dancing, and young love, but is it what Sparkle wants - or needs?