URI Football player debuts film ‘Days in Delhi’ at Multicultural Center

University of Rhode Island sophomore defensive back Shawn Antoine II released his eye-opening documentary, “Days in Delhi,” at the Multicultural Center on Sunday before its official release on Monday.

Antoine, an economics and public relations double major, has taken on a larger role as an active member of the community. The film is 30 minutes long and focuses on topics of poverty, pollution, culture, problems with traffic, the stray animals that wander around small communities and the children in the community. It also highlights visits to the Taj Mahal in Agra, the Galtaji Temple in Jaipur and the Nahargarh Fort from Antoine’s  J Term trip. Antoine and a group of students were guided by URI professors Manbir Sodhi, an engineering professor, and Meg DeCubellis, a former Rhode Island School of Design professor and adjunct professor at URI. DeCubellis, who is also a fashion designer for Apparel Design, has also worked with the Textiles program at URI and RISD. During the trip, students and faculty learned about Indian culture, history, manufacturing and textile plants in the local community.  

“All my experiences out there had an influence on me,” Antoine said. “Anything I couldn’t bring back to the states, I wanted to give it to people that weren’t able to take the trip so they can feel what I felt and it could impact their lives as much as it impacted my life.”

Antoine, who has grown to love film-making, chronicled his trip with many photographs, recordings and memories he hopes to show to everyone who was not able to make the trip.

“India has a way of blending all of their artist together,” DeCubellis said. “There’s hand work, there’s bead work, there’s textile.” Sodhi and DeCubellis each played a “major role in the film,” according to Antoine. Antoine also showed a snippet of his documentary at RISD’s Fashion Revolution to several professors from RISD and Brown University, who told Antoine that they “loved it.”

“The main thing I learned is being grateful,” Antoine said. “A lot of those kids out there don’t have anything, literally. Being in college is just a blessing, so I should definitely take advantage of all of my opportunities here.”

Antoine said that while the trip was an eye-opening experience, he hopes to grow as a filmmaker and hopes for the opportunity to travel to other parts of the world as well.

“The process was tough because I had so many clips,” he said, adding that the process of making the film was “hard, but it was very well worth it.”

While football always come first for Antoine, he said that his love for film is definitely growing and he looks forward to more opportunities to travel and explore.