The winners of the award for Best T&T Film in Development at the 2017 T&T Film Festival (ttff), writers Karen Martinez and Georgia Popplewell and producer Lesley-Ann Macfarlane, say the prize is a sign of progress. It showed that bpTT and ttff are acknowledging that the process of making a film can be a long and arduous one.

The project, a feature-length narrative script called Scattered, has already won several prizes, including the Best Caribbean Film Mart Project award at ttff 2016, and has been shortlisted for the Sundance International Screenwriters’ Lab and CineMart Rotterdam.

Filmmakers wishing to apply for a $10,000 award for the best T&T film in development have until 30 August to do so. The award sponsored by BP Trinidad and Tobago as part of the T&T Film Festival, seeks to make a contribution towards the completion of a local narrative or documentary feature film currently in pre-production, which is being made by a T&T resident or national and is to be made in this country.

Christian James who won the BPTT Best T&T Film in Development in 2014, spoke about the impact that winning that award has had on his work.

Filmmakers wishing to apply for a TT$10,000 Award for the best TT film in development, have until 30 August to do so.  The Award sponsored by BP Trinidad and Tobago as part of the trinidad+tobago film festival, seeks to make a contribution towards the completion of a local narrative or documentary feature film currently in pre-production, which is being made by a TT resident or national and is to be made in this country.

In response to written questions about the impact of winning the BPTT Best TT Film in Development Award in 2014, filmmaker Christian James had this to say:

What were your immediate feelings on winning?

I remember being surprised actually! I had just returned to Trinidad with an MFA in Creative Producing and had a slate of projects/ ideas I was working on. The plan was to figure out which one of these ideas was exciting, culturally relevant, and had a vision for International development. I ended up applying with Rajah (working title), which is based on the life of the infamous Boysie Singh, even though I had ‘Green Days by the River’ in development as well. I knew Green Days… could have been produced with local money, due to the strong Caribbean property of the book by Michael Anthony, but Rajah would need bigger scale budgets and international funders to get off the ground.