Line-up announced for the ttff/11

The line-up has been announced for the trinidad+tobago film festival 2011 (ttff/11), with more films screening than ever before in the festival’s history.

The ttff, presented by Flow, is a celebration of the best films from the Caribbean, the Caribbean Diaspora and Latin American countries in the Caribbean Basin. This year will see nearly 100 feature-length and short films being screened at the festival, which takes place from September 21 to October 04.

Among the many anticipated films is Ghett’a Life, an urban drama and the new feature by Jamaica’s Chris Browne, writer and director of the popular Third World Cop. Another anticipated film from Jamaica is the politically charged Better Mus’ Come, the debut feature by Storm Saulter.

A number of top-totch films from or about Cuba are also screening at the ttff/11. One is the searing Boleto al paraíso, by veteran filmmaker Gerardo Chijona, about a group of young people trying to navigate the “Special Period” of deprivation in the early 1990s. Another is Sons of Cuba, a documentary by British director Andrew Lang that goes inside the elite Havana Boxing Academy.

Documentaries from Trinidad and Tobago are also in the line-up. ‘70: Remembering a Revolution, directed by Alex de Verteuil and Elizabeth Topp, tells the story of the Black Power disturbances of 1970, while Calypso Rose: The Lioness of the Jungle is a moving portrait of the pioneering calypsonian, directed by Pascale Obolo.

Other key films screening at the ttff/11 include film festival-circuit favourite Jean Gentil, written and directed by Laura Guzmán of the Dominican Republic and Israel Cárdenas of Mexico, and Crab Trap, by Colombian filmmaker Oscar Ruiz Navia. Festival of Lights, a drama and the debut film of Guyanese-American writer and director Shundell Prasad, will also be screened.

The ttff, which is in its sixth year, receives leading sponsorship from RBC Royal Bank and is supported by the Trinidad & Tobago Film Company, the National Gas Company, bpTT, the Tourism Development Corporation and the Tobago House of Assembly.