Exciting lineup of activities at University of the West Indies for ttff/13

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For the sixth straight year, the University of the West Indies (UWI) Film Programme will partner with the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff), which runs from 17 September to 01 October, to host a series of film screenings, workshops and other events during the upcoming Festival.

This year the events will take place at the Film Programme’s new building at 12 Carmody Road, St Augustine.

Things kick off on 18 September with a film-producing workshop with Andrea Calderwood, from 10am to 1pm. Calderwood is the producer of films such as The Last King of Scotland (2006), which won an Oscar for star Forest Whitaker, and Half of a Yellow Sun (2013), an epic account of the Biafran war starring Thandie Newton, which opens the ttff/13.

Events continue with a day of documentary films on September 20. The lineup is: No Bois Man No Fraid (10am), a documentary about stickfighting by local filmmaker Christopher Laird; Fatal Assistance (11.45am), about the aftermath of Haiti’s devastating earthquake; Songs of Redemption (1:30PM), about the rehabilitation of prison inmates in Jamaica through reggae music; and at 3.15pm, Forward Ever: The Killing of a Revolution, by UWI lecturer Dr Bruce Paddington, about the events leading to the US invasion of Grenada in 1983.

On 21 September a collection of UWI student films will be screened from 7pm. They include The Gang That Walks, which looks at the men of the controversial Nation of Islam in Trinidad and Tobago; If I Could Fly, the story of an unhappy young girl whose wish is to fly like her kite; Lime of the Dead, a comedy about a group of young men whose friend becomes a zombie; and Mystic Blue, about a couple that try to hold their relationship together despite their different beliefs.

Then on 24 September a series of Caribbean fiction films will be screened. These are: I Am a Director (12pm), a comedy from Puerto Rico; The Kid Who Lies (1:45pm), a Venezuelan film about a 13-year-old’s search for his mother; Melaza (3:45pm), a Cuban drama about a couple’s struggle to make ends meet; and at 5:30pm, God Loves the Fighter, a film by T&T’s Damian Marcano about a young man from east Port of Spain who reluctantly begins working for a gang leader.

On 25 September at 6:30pm, the film festival welcomes Dr. Malini Guha, assistant professor of Film Studies at Carleton University, Canada, who will give a lecture about the cinematic representation of Caribbean life and culture in London. Then on 26 September at 7.00pm Dr Gabrielle Hezekiah, lecturer in the Department of Literature, Communication and Cultural Studies, will host a package of films from the ttff/13’s New Media programme, co-curated with ARC magazine.

From 2pm on 28 September there will be a screening of films from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, which will be introduced by their curator, Dr Mary Leonard.

Finally, on 30 September, Festival events on campus come to a close with a retrospective of the films of John Akomfrah. Several of the acclaimed director’s works will be screened, including his newest film, The Stuart Hall Project, about the famed Jamaican-British intellectual. Akomfrah himself will attend the retrospective.

All events, except the Andrea Calderwood workshop are free and open to the public. To register for the workshop, call 621.0709.

Image: A still from Mystic Blue