Danielle Dieffenthaller, producer of Westwood Park, dies at 60 ^{CEFR B2}

On the evening of November 22 the official Instagram account of Kes the Band announced the death of Danielle Dieffenthaller. She was the older sister of the band’s frontman Kees, guitarist Jon, and former drummer Hans Dieffenthaller. Dieffenthaller had been diagnosed with renal failure in 2018, was on dialysis for years and was working towards a kidney transplant. The transplant process was stymied by heart complications, and she died in hospice at the age of 60.

Dieffenthaller spent much of her teenage years outside Trinidad and Tobago. During a vacation home she saw an after-school special where everyone looked like her, and that moment guided her decision to work in film and television. At 18 she returned and joined state-owned Trinidad and Tobago Television, working on Turn of the Tide, Meena and No Boundaries and persuading Horace James to hire her as a production assistant. She studied film at Ryerson (now Toronto Metropolitan University) and later worked in England on the Channel Four series The Bandung File.

Back in Trinidad she joined the Banyan series Body Beat about the AIDS epidemic, where she met Georgia Popplewell and Walt Lovelace; together they co-founded Earth TV, producing Eco Watch, music videos and a planned adaptation of Wide Sargasso Sea. As producer and director of Westwood Park she kept ownership and control; the series ran for six seasons, screened across the Caribbean and was syndicated in Papua New Guinea, the United States and the United Kingdom. Colleagues described her determination and courage—Walt Lovelace noted her stubbornness—and in 1990 she filmed the insurrectionists’ surrender and the release of hostages from parliament.

Her later projects included The Reef, set in Tobago, and part of a pilot for Plain Sight focused on urban communities. Dieffenthaller argued that images and stories can change how people understand each other. In 2019 she received the Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Awards for Excellence in Arts and Letters. After news of her death the Trinidad and Tobago Film Company, journalists and cultural organisations posted tributes, and individuals including Nigel A. Campbell and Jade Drakes paid public tribute to her work and advocacy for local talent.