The 2015 Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival, will be held from 15–29 September 2015. Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the festival will be launching the Caribbean Film Mart + Regional Film Database, and will be hosting a symposium on Caribbean Cinema. This year’s Festival will also feature a lineup of Classic Caribbean films.
The ttff celebrates films from and about the Caribbean and its diaspora, as well as from world cinema, through an annual festival and year-round screenings. In addition, the ttff seeks to facilitate the growth of Caribbean cinema by offering a wide-ranging industry programme and networking opportunities.
Let’s take a look at some of the Caribbean films, selected for this year’s Festival:
Alto Vista
by Juan Francisco Pardo
Narrative Short
Aruba | 2015
Film in Competition
Souls trapped in a moment, searching for love, satisfaction and forgiveness. Alto Vista is a place that not only unites a family, but also divides them, repeating their past and reflecting their future.
April 4th 1968
by Myriam Gharbi
Narrative Short
Guadeloupe | 2014
Film in Competition
Young Sabine lives with her aunt in the countryside of Guadeloupe. As she leaves home in her pretty dress and newly braided hair, she has no idea that on this particular day she won’t be going to school.
Aurora
by Pascal Fontana
Narrative Short
Puerto Rico | 2015
Film in Competition
Six-year-old Aurora is abandoned in the mountains by humans traffickers. She wanders until she finds a cabin in the woods. The owner returns and realises somebody has been at his place. The next morning he is taken by surprise with the discovery of this high-spirited child.
Trailer:
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The English Teacher
by Alán González
Narrative Feature
Cuba | 2015
Film in Competition
Tired of nursing her husband through his terminal illness, 65-year-old Sonia, a retired teacher, decides to resume giving classes at her Havana home. Like the city, stagnant over time, and in the darkness of her house, she must face her feelings in order to regain her freedom.
Giants
by Damian Marcano
Narrative Short
Trinidad & Tobago | 2015
Film in Competition
Giants is a moving story about young immigrant children in the Netherlands and the people they look up to, their giants.
In the Horizon’s Dream
by Ramón Alfonso Peña
Narrative Short
Dominican Republic | 2015
Film in Competition
1961, Dominican Republic. Chico relives the last moments spent at home with his older brother Luis, who wishes to study in the capital city, and their mother, mourning the loss of her husband due to the Trujillo dictatorship. The arrival of a telegram confirming Luis’s departure might change their lives forever.
Mommy Water
by Julien Silloray
Narrative Short
Guadeloupe | 2015
Film in Competition
Eight-year-old Rosental lives with his father in the seaside village of Port Louis. He is intent on finding his mother, who recently passed away. Kamo, the village sorcerer, informs him that she has turned into a mommy water, a siren who lures fishermen to a realm deep beneath the ocean.
Ti Coq
by Nadia Charlery
Narrative Short
Martinique | 2015
Film in Competition
Josué is a roguish boy living with his grandmother. He has a pet rooster that he loves, and wishes to train him to become a dreaded fighting cock. A succession of unexpected events, however, looks set to frustrate his plans.
Trailer:
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Papa Machete
by Jonathan David Kane
Documentary Short
Haiti | 2014
Film in Competition
Haitian farmer, Alfred Avril, is one of the last remaining masters of tire machèt, the martial art created by enslaved Haitians to fight Napoleon’s armies. Teaching about the practical and spiritual value of the machete—both a weapon and a farmer’s key to survival—Avril provides a link between his country’s past and its present.
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Sixteen
by Vashti Harrison
Documentary Short
Trinidad & Tobago | 2015
Film in Competition
Sixteen is a coming-of-age story. It is an exploration of memory and what time can change. The sound and image form a marriage between the past and the present in the three layers: the story of a difficult childhood, that of a beautiful adulthood, and a voice recounting fading memories.
Fade to Black
by Christopher Guinness
Narrative Short
Trinidad & Tobago | 2015
Off the coast of northern Trinidad, sometime in the near future, Thomas, an elderly man, struggles to hold on to his memories in his last days. Meanwhile his caregiver, Angelo, engages in an online relationship with the nefarious Dark Eyes, which proves to have costly repercussions.
Trailer:
Goldfish
by Elenie Chung
Narrative Short
Trinidad & Tobago | 2015
Film in Competition
A goldfish experiences exclusion, alienation and isolation, while apartment hunting.
The Cuatro Man
by Mikhail Gibbings
Narrative Short
Trinidad & Tobago | 2015
Film in Competition
The Cuatro Man is a portrait of Robert Munro, a virtuoso Trinidad and Tobago musician. Regarded as a legend in his own music community, he faces a relative lack of recognition in mainstream culture alongside his four-stringed musical instrument.
Paradise Lost
by Christopher Laird
Documentary Short
Trinidad & Tobago | 2015
Film in Competition
Carnival artist Peter Minshall tells the story of the design and construction of Paradise Lost, his first masquerade band for the Trinidad and Tobago carnival in 1976. He does so while viewing and reacting to the remastered version of the only known film footage of the band on stage.
Trailer:
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Riding Bull Cart
by Rhonda Chan Soo
Documentary Short
Trinidad & Tobago | 2015
Film in Competition
Riding Bull Cart is a portrait of a farmer, Boylie. Boylie carries us on his daily journey to cut grass for his cattle, taking us against the ebb and flow of the quickening pace of modernisation, into a grassy haven where we find refuge from the maddening heat, haze and pollution.
The Misadventures of Brian and Sachin
by Nicholas Clarke, R. Anderson Edghill
Narrative Short
Trinidad & Tobago | 2015
Two teenage village boys set out on a journey into the forest to track down a local eccentric after he takes off with their prized cricket ball.
Off the Box
by Maya Cross-Lovelace
Narrative Short
Trinidad and Tobago | 2015
Noah’s girlfriend, Shenelle, breaks up with him on the day of his 21st birthday. Noah gets a call from the magic birthday man who gives him until midnight to replace Shenelle—if he doesn’t, there will be disastrous consequences.
Party Girl
by Roma Zachemba
Narrative Short
Trinidad and Tobago/Poland | 2015
Trinidad, 1970, just before the Black Power Revolution. A poolside party with an all-white crowd is in full swing. When an unexpected guest arrives, desire leads events to take a different turn.
Bottom in de Road
by Oyetayo Ojoade, Sharon Syriac
Documentary Short
Trinidad and Tobago | 2015
With wit and humour, Bottom in de Road explores “bottom power”, offering analysis of the female bottom as seen through the gaze of the Caribbean man. The role of the bottom in expressing freedom and as a source of religious controversy are also considered.
City on the Hill
by Patricia Mohammed, Michael Mooleedhar
Documentary Short
Trinidad and Tobago | 2015
City on the Hill is a look at the history of the communities erected on the hillside slopes of Laventille. The film examines the evolution of the chequered relationship between the landscape and its inhabitants, as well as selected aspects of Laventille’s architecture.
For the full lineup, visit the Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival’s website.
Happy Festivalling!!
