Caribbean Calling at the Havana Film Festival

The 34th annual Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latino Americano—or the Havana Film Festival (HFF), as it’s popularly known—gets underway today in the Cuban capital. The largest and longest-running film festival in the region, the Havana Film Festival is one of the most important showcases for cinema coming out of Latin America.

Caribbean cinema has never featured prominently at the Havana Film Festival. That is set to change, however, as the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) presents Caribbean Calling: A Programme of New and Recent Cinema from the Caribbean at this year’s HFF.

Running from December 9-13, Caribbean Calling features feature-length and short films, both dramatic and documentary, from the English-, French- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean, all of which have previously screened at the ttff. The line-up is as follows:

Features
Better Mus’ Come (Storm Saulter, Jamaica, 2010)
Hit Me with Music (Miquel Galofré, Jamaica, 2011)
Inward Hunger (Mariel Brown, T&T, 2011)
Moloch Tropical (Raoul Peck, Haiti, 2011)
SistaGod (Yao Ramesar, T&T, 2006)

Shorts
10 Ave Maria (Ryan Oduber/Francisco Pardo, Curaçao, 2011)
Doubles with Slight Pepper (Ian Harnarine, T&T, 2011)
Fish (Shaun Escayg, T&T, 2012)
Gravedigger (Gabrielle Blackwood, Jamaica, 2012)
The Legend of Buchi Fil (German Gruber, Aruba, 2010)

A number of the directors whose films are screening in the programme will be on hand to introduce their work and engage in Q&A sessions with audiences.

In addition to the film screenings, Caribbean Calling will also comprise a press conference, and a panel discussion on Caribbean film. Also, the book Exploring Caribbean Cinema, co-edited by Dr Bruce Paddington, Founder and Festival Director of the ttff, will have its Cuban launch during the festival.