Caribbean in focus at Latin American film festival

Past selections from the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) will form part of the lineup at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Film Festival, which takes place from 29 May to 01 June in Washington, DC.

LASA is the largest professional organisation in the world for individuals and institutions engaged in the study of Latin America. It has over 7000 members, and its mission is to foster intellectual discussion, research, and teaching on Latin America and the Caribbean throughout the Americas.

The LASA Film Festival, which began in 1983, takes place in connection with the annual LASA Congress. This year, for the first time, films from the Caribbean will be in focus, with the ttff as an official programme partner of the festival.

Five previous ttff selections, all documentaries, will be screened at the festival. They are Curaçao, Goudougoudou, Journey to Hope and Nothing like Chocolate—all ttff/12 picks—and the ttff/11 selection Hit Me with Music.

“The repeated absence from the cinematographic register of the Caribbean (with the exception, of course, of Cuba) saw us partner the trinidad+tobago film festival in order to present a group of films from and about the region,” said Claudia Ferman, Director of the LASA Film Festival.

“This selection ventures into gastro-criticism, environmental preservation and fair trade in Nothing like Chocolate; it presents Jamaican dancehall, and the society and culture with which it is associated, in Hit Me With Music; it investigates the grief of Haitians who, after a devastating earthquake, had also to suffer the notorious failure to provide aid to victims, in Goudougoudou; and it reveals a harrowing manifestation of coloniality in Curaçao.”

Dr Bruce Paddington, Founder and Festival Director of the ttff, will attend LASA as the ttff’s official representative, and will introduce a number of the screenings.

Image: still from Goudougoudou