ttff’s next Backyard Cinema screening will make you want to move! On 05 December, we’ll screen two engaging ttff/20 films, Best Student Film winner: La Pieza de Casseus, and fan favourite, Jump! (directed by Shari Petti), at our in-person screenings on Jerningham Ave in Belmont.

Tickets cost $35 each and can be purchased in advance or at the gate for one of two showtimes: 6.15pm and 8.00pm. Screenings will take place at 22 Jerningham Ave, Belmont.

Films will be screened in compliance with health and safety guidelines for masks, size of the gathering, and social distancing.

Buy tickets for the 6.15pm screening

Buy tickets for the 8.00pm screening

•We can receive cash, credit card or linx payments, and there will be refreshments for sale.

We’re delighted be be screening two of this year’s award-winning films at our first backyard cinema!  Join us Friday 13 November at 22 Jerningham Ave, Belmont, for in-person screenings of “Unbroken” and “I don’t call it Ghetto”. Tickets cost $35 each and must be purchased in advance for one of two showtimes: 5.30pm and 7.30pm. Films will be screened in compliance with health and safety guidelines for masks, size of the gathering, and social distancing.

buy tickets for 5.30 screening

buy tickets for 7.30 screening

#ttffbackyardcinema#ttffcommunityscreening#watchsomething
#inperson#sociallydistanced#ttfilmfestival#ttff20

As part of ttff/19 carifesta edition, Ray Funk will be presenting a celebration of Pan Pioneers  who have passed away. This free event will focus on Ellie Mannette, Kim Loy Wong, Cliff Alexis, Pat Bishop, Ken “Professor” Philmore, Clyde Bradley and Jit Samaroo, several of who passed in 2018.

Funk’s presentation offers rare clips of interviews with these pioneers, as well as performances by Invaders, Despers, Renegades and more. It will be presented twice, on Saturday 17 August, 6.30pm at the Couva Joylanders Panyard, and Sunday 18 August, 4.30pm at the Academy for the Performing Arts (APA) Room 01, Queen’s Park South. Tickets are available at APA or online here.

This latest programme represents Funk’s desire to offer, in one event, an opportunity to let his audience hear and see these pioneers of pan talk, and look at rare clips of pan in concert, festival, and on the streets at Carnival. “I want to offer in this event rare performances of steelpan, but also let the history of pan unfold from the voices of the icons who contributed to its history.” The clips come from various films, television programmes and private sources. They are primarily from Ray Funk’s own collection with assistance from Christopher Laird of Banyan Archives and Timmy Mora of Visual Arts and Production.

Ray Funk has done a number of previous presentations for the trinidad+tobago film festival of historic film clips on Trinidad Carnival, calypso, pan and mas. A retired Alaskan trial judge, Funk has been coming to Trinidad regularly for over two decades, primarily during carnival. He has written dozens and dozens of articles for all three Trinidad daily newspapers, co-written books on Invaders and Northern Illinois Steelband, and been a Fulbright US scholar.

We’re pleased to announce a new community film series. family matinee, sponsored by Republic Bank Limited will run from August 12 to 26 and offers a new entertainment options for families during the August vacation. Admission is free.

The inaugural film series is an extension of the ttff’s ‘community cinema’ – an essential part of ttff’s mission and objectives to use film as an agent of perception change, social transformation, education, entertainment and inspiration.

The family matinee series will present four films featuring children and young people around the world overcoming various forms of social, political and familial adversity, with inspiring conclusions.

Family Matinee Schedule:

SUN Aug 12/4pm/ Arima Town Hall

 Esteban

Drama/Spanish with English Subtitles

In this heart melting story of 9 year old Esteban, who casually discovers his love and talent for the piano. Against all odds in Havana Cuba, he perseveres towards his dream. Featuring a soundtrack by the legendary Cuban piano godfather Chucho Valdés.

Sat Aug 18/ 4pm/ The Department of Creative and Festival Arts (DCFA)

Gordon St, St. Augustine

Landfill Harmonic- A Symphony of the Human Spirit

Documentary/ Spanish with English Subtitles

This is the astounding and inspirational story of an orchestra playing music from instruments made entirely out of garbage. When a natural disaster devastates their community, the orchestra provides a source of hope for the town.

Sun Aug 19/4pm/ San Fernando City Hall

Adama

Animated Drama/ French with English Subtitles

Adama lives a traditional life in a sheltered valley in West Africa. When his older brother runs away to be a warrior, Adama goes in search of him and inexplicably encounters the French. His quest takes him as far as the Western Front in the middle of World War I.

Sun Aug 26/ 4pm/ Buccoo Community Centre, Tobago 

Lamb

Drama/ Amharic with English Subtitles    

When Ephraim is sent from his homeland in Ethiopia to live with distant relatives, he takes his beloved lamb with him. When his uncle announces his intention to sacrifice the lamb Ephraim is ready to do anything to save his only friend and return home.

Guests are welcome to bring their own snacks.

The trinidad+tobago film festival (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. The ttff is given leading sponsorship by BP Trinidad and Tobago, the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts; supporting sponsorship by The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago and Republic Bank Limited; and contributing sponsorship by FilmTT.

Forty-four years since its first release, the highly acclaimed local film Bim, will screen once again at We Beat’s We Film Night, on Wednesday 06 June 2018, at 7pm . The free screening, at the St James Amphitheatre, is presented by the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) in partnership with the St James Community Improvement Committee and  ttff ‘s official technical partner North Eleven Projections.

Described as “the best T&T film ever made” by film critic B.C Pires, Bim is  revered as a West Indian cult classic of Caribbean cinema. The script was written by local playwright and newspaper journalist, Raoul Pantin and co-produced by Susanne Nunez, wife of the director, Hugh A. Robertson.

Bim tells the story of Bheem Singh, who  is sent to live with his aunt in Port of Spain. Bullied at school and abused at home, he runs away and begins a life of petty crime. After returning to the countryside-and taking a new name, Bim-he becomes leader of the sugar workers, and eventually leader of the colony’s opposition party. It isn’t long, however, before his violent past catches up with him.

The role of Bim is played by Ralph Maraj, a politician,  playwright and actor, of both stage and screen. Music for the film was written by the late Andre Tanker who worked with some of the country’s best musicians to fuse African and Indian rhythms.

Shot a decade after our country’s  independence, Bim did not open to much fanfare in 1975. However, it was shown at the  United States Virgin Islands Film Festival in St Thomas in 1975 and at the CARIFESTA Film Festival in Jamaica and Los Angeles Film Festival, both in 1976.

Bruce Paddington, founder and festival director of the ttff described the film  as “one of the most important films to be produced in Trinidad and Tobago and … one of the classics of Caribbean cinema”.

Bim  screens on Wednesday 06 June, 7pm, at the St James Amphitheatre, next door to the St James Police Station on the Western Main Road. Rated PG, admission is free and drinks and refreshments will be on Sale. Patrons should feel free to bring their own blankets and mats.

The trinidad+tobago film festival 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. The ttff is given leading sponsorship by BP Trinidad and Tobago .

Shashamane: on the trail of the promised land, a documentary directed by Italian-French filmmaker, Giulia Amati, will screen Friday 06 April, 3pm at UWI Film Studio, 12 Carmody Street, The University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine.

This free screening is presented by the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) in partnership with the University as part of a two-day international workshop called “Local Entanglements of Global Inequalities” at the UWI. The workshop is organised by the Department of Literary, Cultural and Communication Studies (LCCS); the Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS); Department of Sociology at UWI and Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany.

Set in Ethiopia, the documentary investigates the life of the Rastafarian community living on the land donated for their repatriation back to Africa. In 1948, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie donated 500 acres of his own private lands “for the black people of the world” to encourage displaced Africans to repatriate.

A number of rastafarians took up the offer in search of a utopia in the motherland and established one of the oldest Rastafari settlements in the world, in Shashamane, Ethiopia. The dream has not perhaps matched their reality. Their spiritual home is under threat. Much of the land is lost and many Ethiopians view them as outsiders, leaving the community in limbo.

Shashamane, Amati’s  second feature-length film, is a compelling look at the seldom highlighted migration of the African diaspora back to the continent in search of a lost identity.

The film screens on  Friday 06 April, 3pm, at  UWI Film Studio, 12 Carmody Street, The University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine. Dr. Shelene Gomes,  UWI Lecturer and Anthropologist who wrote her doctoral dissertation on  Shashamane will have a discussion after the film.

The trinidad+tobago film festival (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. The ttff is given leading sponsorship by BP Trinidad and Tobago.

 

In celebration of First People’s Day (on 13 October), the trinidad+tobago film festival  will host Indigenous Voices – an afternoon of films presenting a diverse spectrum of indigenous storytelling and powerful narratives on the disappearing indigenous cultures of T+T and the Americas. The event will be held on Saturday 14 October from 12.00pm – 5.00pm, at the Arima Town Hall, in association with the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community, and with sponsorship from the Ministry of Community Development Culture and the Arts. Admission is free.

According to Melvina Hazard, director of Community Development at the trinidad+tobago film festival – “We are thrilled to be participating in the national celebration of the First Peoples of TT, with support from the Ministry of community Development, Culture and the Arts, and to be using the power of film to encourage national discourse on issues of national and regional importance. We hope that Indigenous Voices will continue over the years  as we officially commemorate this long awaited celebration.”

THE SCHEDULE OF FILMS:

12.00pm : GONE WITH THE  RIVER/ Drama/Venezuela / rated GA / 104 mins/ Director: Mario Crespo / Spanish and Warao, with English subtitles                                                                             

Dauna is a member of the Warao tribe of the Orinoco River delta. Her thirst for education is encouraged by her family and the local priest. As Dauna grows, her desire to experience life beyond the river grows too, but Tarcisio, her childhood sweetheart, is tied to the traditional ways of the community and Dauna fears her ambitions and dreams maybe thwarted, as she struggles to carve out a modern identity as an inhabitant of two cultures —Warao and Catholic.

2.00pm: THE AMERINDIANS/Documentary  / Trinidad and Tobago / rated GA / 40 mins/Director:Tracy Assing/ English/Q+A

Until now, Amerindian descendants in T+T  have depended on the stories of grandparents and great-grandparents for their history. With the indigenous story of dignity and survival written out of the history books, director Tracy Assing, who was raised a member of the Santa Rosa Carib Community, explores her indigenous lineage, while pondering an uncertain future.  The screening will be followed by a Q+A with the director.

3.00pm: EL ABRAZO DEL SERPIENTE (EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT) /Director: Ciro Guerra/Narrative Feature / Colombia / rated 14+ / 125 mins/Spanish, Portuguese,  German, Catalan, Latin, with English subtitles

Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and the last survivor of his people, searches for the rare and sacred psychedelic yakruna plant to save the life of a western explorer he reluctantly befriends. In the span of 40 years he takes two parallel odysseys through the Amazon, in this blistering and poetic epic that examines the ravages of colonialism in South America. Embrace of the Serpent won the Art Cinema Award at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards, in 2015.

The trinidad+tobago film festival (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. The ttff is presented by Flow; given leading sponsorship by BPTT and the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts; supporting sponsorship by the Inter-American Development Bank and UN Women; and contributing sponsorship from RBC Royal Bank.

Visit theSanta Rosa First Peoples Community website for the full calendar of events celebrating First Peoples’ Day.

https://youtu.be/ZTimw4njDMQ

The award-winning film Ninth Floor, a documentary produced by TT-born, Canada-based,  Selwyn Jacob, will make its cinematic return to Trinidad this July at The University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine.                                                                                                

The film directed by independent filmmaker Mina Shum, was shown as part of ttff/16 to critical acclaim. The free screening is presented by the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) in partnership with the Department of Cultural Studies, UWI.

Described as addressing “the most dramatic and violent racial conflict in modern Canadian history” by povmagazine.com, Ninth Floor examines the Sir George Williams University riot of February 1969, when six Caribbean students mounted a protest against institutional racism. It would snowball into 14-days of chaos and violence, with riot police storming the occupied ninth floor, and a storm of computer cards raining down onto the streets below.

The film was chosen as one of Canada’s top ten films by the the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)  in 2016. It presents never-before-seen footage of the students’ protest and occupation of the ninth floor computer room, as well as interviews with several of the students involved.

Ninth Floor  will be shown on Thursday 20 July, 5:30pm, at the Centre for Language Learning (CLL), The University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine.  It is rated 14+.

Selwyn Jacob will be present for a Q&A session after the film. His trip to Trinidad and the screening of the film have been facilitated by the National Film Board of Canada and is supported by the Mausica Teachers College Alumni, of which Jacob is a member.

 

For the 6th consecutive year, we’re pleased to partner with the St. James Community Improvement Committee to bring WeFilm Night – a night of free outdoor cinema – to the WeBeat festival. God Loves the Fighter, the award winning gritty, urban drama will be shown on Tuesday 06 June 2017, at 7pm, at the St James Amphitheatre. The screening is sponsored by Flow, tfff’s presenting sponsor.

God Loves the Fighter is directed by US-based, TT-born filmmaker Damian Marcano, and  features a stellar local cast including Mohammed Muwakil, Lou Lyons, Jamie Lee Phillips, Penelope Spencer, Albert Laveau and Zion Henry among others.

Hailed for its “non-conformist and thrilling voice”  by the UK’s Candid magazine and for its “Slick cinematography” by the film magazine, Variety, God Loves the Fighter, played to sold out audiences  at the ttff 2013, where it won the People’s Choice Award and the Best Local Feature Award. It also won the 2014 Yellow Robin Award at the Curaçao International Film Festival Rotterdam among others.

The film  tells the story of Charlie (Muwakil), a young man seeking to make ends meet on the streets of Port of Spain. Reluctantly, he takes a job from a gang leader as assistant to a drug courier. As he becomes entangled in a web of deceit, the ripple effects are felt across the city, complicating his attempts at redemption.

Shot during the 2011 State of Emergency,  in an urgent and unflinching style, God Loves the Fighter was Marcano’s debut feature film. The film was written by Marcano and Executive Producer, Alexa Bailey. Marcano’s first short feature film, The Little Boy and The Ball showed at ttff/11; while two of his other short dramas, Heart of a Monster and Giants played at ttff/15 and ttff/16 respectively. His most recent project is the web series CHEE$E.

Speaking about his influences for God Loves the Fighter , Marcano notes “ I always saw the beauty of my community. I left, I went to the US, and when I began to start travelling back here on my own again, as an adult, I started venturing into the community and just meeting people. One of the problems that I see is that in our community of the hills, if you will, or just east Port-of-Spain, there’s so many territories a young man can’t go, and I didn’t grow up that way. So it was very important for me as a young man from there to team up with other young people from the same community. So this film was a joint effort of the “less desirable” places we read about in the papers. To a lot of us from there, and a lot of us currently living there, it’s a beautiful place… This film was a positive effort put forth by a lot of young people in these communities. Yes we’re taking a very unflinching look, but it’s so real, so true, and we tried to add some beautiful poetry and beautiful imagery to the story.”

God loves the Fighter is rated 18+. Admission is free and refreshments will be on sale.

 

We’re heading back outside in April, for three nights of open air cinema in Chaguaramas, Chaguanas and San Fernando, with this year’s Community Cinergy Series, sponsored by bpTT.
The films – featuring creative geniuses who push the boundaries of bold-facedness and daring – are free, and offer a great night out under-the-stars for friends and families.

Films include The World of Goopi and Bagha– an animation in Hindi with English subtitles suitable for all ages; Miles Ahead– a fictional drama about jazz-legend, Miles Davis, and All Oceans Blue, a documentary made by and about the around-the world-adventures of local seafarer, Harold LaBorde and his family.

Film details and screening times are as follows:

Sat 01 April, 7pm
Trinidad and Tobago Sailing Association, Chaguaramas
All Oceans Blue
Documentary / ALL AGES / English
Told through family footage and La Borde’s own voice, this is the thrilling story of how in 1969, legendary local sailor and adventurer, Harold La Borde, his wife Kwailan and 5 year old son Pierre set off on an epic, daring adventure, circumnavigating the world, including the Galapagos Islands, the Cook Islands, Tahiti, Tonga, Fiji, The Solomon Islands, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Bali,the Indian Ocean and South Africa.

Sat 08 April, 7pm
Lange Park Recreation Grounds, Lange Park, Chaguanas
The World of Goopi and Bagha
Animation / ALL AGES / Hindi with English subtitles
The hilarious adventures of Goopi and Bagha. Banished to the forest because of their terrible music – they embark on a journey towards musical harmony, involving two rival brother kings, a sinister commander-in-chief, his sidekick wizard, and a princess’ hand to win in marriage.

Sat 15 April 7pm
San Fernando Hill
Miles Ahead
Dir: Don Cheadle / 18+ / English
In the 1970s, jazz musician, Miles Davis, disappears from public view for five years. Forced out of isolation by a music journalist, the two embark on an adventure to recover a stolen tape recording of Davis’ most recent work. Don Cheadle stars as Miles Davis.

Admission to all screenings is Free. Seating will be provided at all venues, but please feel free to bring your own to San Fernando Hill. Refreshments will be on sale.