Canada-born filmmaker Ian Harnarine returns to the land of his parents with a story to tell.

Bare naked in front of his people.

That’s how filmmaker Ian Harnarine will stand on September 20, when his feature film Doubles premiers at the opening of the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff).

The 18th edition of the festival, staged by the Filmmakers Collaborative of Trinidad and Tobago (FILMCO), opens on September 20 at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s and runs until September 27.

The story of a Trinidadian street vendor, who must travel to Toronto, Canada and decide if he will help save his estranged father from dying, Doubles, draws intimate parallels to Harnarine’s own life.

Trinidadian-Canadian director Ian Harnarine says he is looking forward to screening his film “Doubles” at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (TTFF) in September.

The feature film is based on Harnarine’s short film “Double with Slight Pepper” which won the Jury Prize for Best Short Film at the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Genie Award for Best Live Action Short Drama.

The original short film, “Doubles with Slight Pepper,” was executive produced by famed US director and producer Spike Lee.

The feature film, which explores the changing relationship between a father and a son, is set to open at the 18th TTFF at Queen’s Hall on 20 September at 6:30 pm.

“It has been my dream to screen this film for a Trinidadian audience where we filmed, but also where the heart of this project lies. I hope that this will spotlight the talent of everyone involved in this production, especially the actors,” Harnarine stated in a media release.

THE 18th edition of the TT Film Festival (TTFF) will be launched with the premiere of the film Doubles, and includes several local short films.

Festival organisers the Filmmakers Collaborative of Trinidad and Tobago (FILMCO) announced this on September 4 at the festival launch press conference at the VIP Lounge, Hasely Crawford Stadium, Port of Spain.

The festival will have its opening night on September 20 at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, with Doubles by writer/director Ian Harnarine, who was born in Canada to parents from TT. It is a feature-length sequel to his award-winning 2011 short film Doubles with Slight Pepper, which told the story of a young doubles vendor dealing with the return of his estranged father from Canada.

The festival will screen over 100 films from the Caribbean, the Caribbean diaspora and about the Caribbean. FILMCO director Danielle Dieffenthaller said there are only 17 local films in the festival, and explained this was due to a lack of investment in films.

“We’ve seen how lack of investment hurts the festival. And also too, the submissions that we did get, it was basically blood, sweat and tears and nothing else. That’s all they had.”

She said some of the local films were a minute to five minutes in length because that was all the filmmakers could afford.

Two new additions to the festival are the award category for best film by a woman and a film block titled I Advocate, of films on issues related to domestic violence and women’s rights, the latter curated in conjunction with the European Film Festival.

On the new award, Dieffenthaller said there are a lot of women involved in film who are not recognised. She added the block of women’s films will highlight issues normally swept under the carpet, including one called Our Menopause.

“Caribbean people need to tell intriguing stories about their lives and capture their experiences on screens,” stated Lisa Burkett, senior manager of Corporate Sustainability at National Gas Company (NGC), as she delivered remarks at yesterday’s launch of the 18th edition of the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (TTFF), at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Port of Spain.

Burkett emphasised the importance of supporting local film to stimulate economic diversification, while contributing significantly to culture and identity.

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The Filmmakers Collaborative of Trinidad and Tobago (FILMCO) has launched the 18th edition of the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff), which the organisation has managed since 2019.

The ttff showcases films from and about the Caribbean and its diaspora.

Under the theme #lookwe, films on the roster this year will include World and Caribbean premiers. The countries represented in this year’s Festival include Trinidad, Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Suriname, St. Vincent, Haiti, Brazil, The Bahamas, Puerto Rico, France, Spain, Germany, USA, Netherlands, and Nepal.

This year’s Festival premieres on September 20, with the Opening Night, being hosted at Queen’s Hall from 6pm-11pm.

Audiences will be able to mix and mingle with local and international filmmakers and actors, while getting the chance to see the premier film, “Doubles” which was written and directed by Ian Harnarine, a Canadian born to Trinidadian parents.

Plus, get ready for live entertainment by Olatunji Yearwood.

As part of ongoing efforts to support and develop a national film industry, The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (NGC) has partnered with the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) has on a three-year film development programme, ‘Shooting Stars’, for secondary school students.

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, ttff seeks to facilitate the growth of Caribbean cinema by offering a wide-ranging industry programme and networking opportunities.

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The documentary Sun, Sea and Science: Trinidad after Oil is arguably the most important film being shown at the ttff this year. Although quite technical in parts, director Raymond Ramcharitar has done an admirable job making a clear, easily accessible film. Running at 40 mins Sun, Sea and Science: Trinidad after Oil is an incredibly well researched documentary that would make compelling viewing for anyone involved in Trinidad’s energy sector and necessary viewing for everyone from our Twin island Republic.

Ramcharitar provides a fascinating insight into Trinidad’s dependency on petroleum and natural gas with possible solutions to this issue. With the spectre of Petrotrin’s recent closure looming the showing was packed to near capacity. Given the stressful circumstances of the energy sector in the last few years, this film was even more relevant to the current national zeitgeist of Trinidad’s relationship with oil.

Diversification is brought up many times throughout the film. How does Trinidad “diversify” its economy? Can we? According to Ramcharitar the two stumbling blocks to diversification lie in the form of money and our own culture. To combat the “money” problem Sun, Sea and Science proposes that the answer lies in entrepreneur Anthony Sabga. Through the Sabga funded Caribbean Awards for Excellence, the businessman could almost be likened to (as strange as it would sound) a Bruce Wayne type figure from Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. Bruce Wayne invests in Gotham. Sabga allocates some of his resources into Trinidad’s private sector. As the saying goes- not all heroes wear capes.

We are introduced to three scientists and past winners of the Caribbean Awards for Excellence; microbiologist Dr Adesh Ramsubhag, computer scientist Prof Patrick Hosein, and medical researcher Prof Paul Teelucksingh. All of them are Trinidadians. And all of them lament the lack of financial resources devoted by the Government into their respective scientific fields. One thing is made quite clear in the film though – each of their respective disciplines are clear options the Government can invest in if it wants to break the shackles of oil dependency.

Ramcharitar then tackles the issue of culture. The film argues that Carnival takes precedence over other potentially profitable sectors of the economy. By highlighting academic research conducted into the yearly losses generated from the Government’s investment into Carnival over the past decades, Ramcharitar has a point. Why not invest a fraction of the allocation that goes into Carnival in local scientific endeavours instead? This, argues Ramcharitar, would be money better spent compared to a Carnival industry that is losing money and asking for more?

“Diversification is such an annoying word! How do you diversify? Where do you diversify?” Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley says in a stock clip in the film. At the Q&A session following the screening Ramcharitar stated members of the Government were given copies of the film. It would be interesting to hear Dr. Rowley’s take on it.

Go see Sun, Sea and Science: Trinidad after Oil and decide for yourself if the solution it presents makes sense or not.

 

The Take One Feature Film Grant, being spearheaded by the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts, in association with New World Film Centre, invites submissions from emerging local first time feature filmmakers.

The Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts, in association with the New World Film Centre (NWFC), will executive produce and coordinate the production of three new local narrative feature films by emerging local first-time feature filmmakers. The Ministry will provide a grant of $250,000TT for each film, while the NWFC will manage the disbursement of these grants, and monitor their progress.

The filmmakers (directors) must be citizens or permanent residents of Trinidad and Tobago and have resided in the country for the past year. They should have directed at least one short film but will be first-time feature filmmakers.

At the recently concluded T&T Film Festival, there was a renewed focus on local films. Green Days By the River, a local feature based on the Michael Anthony novel, opened the Festival and is still running at cinemas. There was also a fantastic response to short films like Maya Cozier’s Short Drop and Shari Petti’s Sorf Hair. Away from the glare of the Festival spotlight, however, there was an extremely important educational event taking place. The British Council teamed up with the T&T Film Festival to host development training for filmmakers in the form of a scriptwriting workshop with British script development consultant Ludo Smolski.