ith only hours to go before the Bermuda International Film Festival (BIFF) kicks off, local filmmaker Errol Williams is still tweaking his festival entry after nearly three years of working on it.

?Yes, I am a perfectionist,? Mr. Williams admitted with a laugh. ?I tend to be a pain in the neck that shoots further down the neck really fast. I starting shooting ?Walking on a Sea of Glass? in July 2003 and we are finishing today.?

?Walking on a Sea of Glass? is a spin-off from a previous documentary Mr. Williams directed called ?When Voices Rise? about the theatre boycott in Bermuda.

He was inspired to research the topic after reading a book called ?A Storm In A Teacup? by Dale Butler and Dr. Eva Hodgson.

?I thought the book captured the excitement of the theatre boycott,? he said. ?In the book, it mentioned this mysterious speaker. When I started asking around I found the speaker Kingsley Tweed. I thought it would make a good documentary if I could find him.?

Mr. Williams was eventually introduced to Mr. Tweed, who was living in England, through writer Ira Philip.

?I realised that Mr. Tweed had an incredible story to tell,? said Mr. Williams. ?After Mr. Tweed left Bermuda in 1961 his entire life was a rather exciting one. I always thought that if I could, I would commit this story to film. I was fortunate enough to have that opportunity.?

But first, Mr. Williams said, it took a lot of convincing to get Mr. Tweed to consent to a documentary.

?Even though he is a very committed individual to his ideas, he shuns publicity,? said Mr. Williams. ?It took him awhile before he agreed that he would do it. I had a lot of convincing to do.?

Mr. Williams said he hopes that Mr. Tweed will be happy with the way that he is portrayed.

?When we see biography of people who have done significant things, it often just focuses on their accomplishments,? Mr. Williams said. ?I wanted to do something a little bit more difficult and explore a little bit about the personal commitment of that person to his ideals.?

Ever since Mr. Tweed first appeared in ?When Voices Rise?, rumours have flown around the community about why Mr. Tweed left the island suddenly.

Mr. Williams said he looked closely into various allegations against Mr. Tweed and found them to be unsubstantiated. One of the rumours had to do with the Bermuda Industrial Union.

?I have found that back in the 1960s all the people involved were lobbing accusations at one another,? said Mr. Williams. ?In my research I wasn?t able to substantiate any of the rumours that Mr. Tweed had done something wrong.?

Mr. Tweed has claimed that he left the island ? and a wife and child ? because there was a price on his head.

?What I do know is that his claims that he was watched very closely by the special branch of the police is absolutely true,? said Mr. Williams. ?I have the evidence of that. I believe from looking at those reports someone wanted him out of the way. Whether they were going to carry out those threats I don?t know. We have to consider at that time in the early 1960s moving from a segregated society to an integrated one, he was considered to be too radical.

?I think that he felt that the threat was to him, not to his family. In the film I interviewed his first wife and daughter. Without giving too much away, lets say that his daughter does actually tell her story, and her story itself is very very touching.?

Mr. Williams said that Mr. Tweed is the kind of person who, when he sees a transgression, feels the need to address it.

?His story would inspire people like me to actually act and I am hoping it would have that effect on the audience,? said Mr. Williams.

He said that making the film has been an amazing journey, and the story itself is ?incredible?.

?The one thing that struck me in making ?When Voices Rise?, and this film was the courage, and the stuff of character that seemed to permeate all of the individuals who had the bravery to stand up. That is something I admire. I often wonder if the situation that existed forty to fifty years ago existed today, would I have that kind of courage? I don?t know, maybe I would. It is something I admire in the Progressive Group. There is a conviction and commitment that what they are doing is right. Kingsley certainly has that.?

When we spoke with Mr. Williams, he was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada working with a Canadian company called Bear Track Productions, to edit his film.

?We have been editing on computers,? said Mr. Williams. ?I am here for the expertise. The resources in Bermuda are getting better, but you still have to go abroad for some things. Lucy Spurling who did ?Rare Bird? did the same thing as me; she went abroad looking for talent. There isn?t a whole lot of experience in Bermuda editing feature length documentaries.?

Mr. Williams and Miss Spurling have been helping each other out a little, bouncing ideas off each other.

?We have been helping each other out,? said Mr. Williams. ?When I came back to Bermuda a few months ago I was showing her my rough cut to get some feedback.?

Mr. Williams has taught history and film making to students at Cedar Bridge Academy. He hopes to use some of his former students to help him make his next movie.

?The good thing is that the whole enterprise of film making is becoming more and more possible in Bermuda,? he said.

His film company is called ?Essequibo Films? after the county that he is from in Guyana. He has lived in Bermuda for over thirty years.

?Walking on Sea Glass? will be shown on March 19 at Southside Cinema in St. David?s and on March 21 at the Little Theatre at 9 p.m. For more information go to www.bermudafilmfest.com .