The festival will have its opening night on September 20 at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, with Doubles by writer/director Ian Harnarine, who was born in Canada to parents from TT. It is a feature-length sequel to his award-winning 2011 short film Doubles with Slight Pepper, which told the story of a young doubles vendor dealing with the return of his estranged father from Canada.
The festival will screen over 100 films from the Caribbean, the Caribbean diaspora and about the Caribbean. FILMCO director Danielle Dieffenthaller said there are only 17 local films in the festival, and explained this was due to a lack of investment in films.
“We’ve seen how lack of investment hurts the festival. And also too, the submissions that we did get, it was basically blood, sweat and tears and nothing else. That’s all they had.”
She said some of the local films were a minute to five minutes in length because that was all the filmmakers could afford.
Two new additions to the festival are the award category for best film by a woman and a film block titled I Advocate, of films on issues related to domestic violence and women’s rights, the latter curated in conjunction with the European Film Festival.
On the new award, Dieffenthaller said there are a lot of women involved in film who are not recognised. She added the block of women’s films will highlight issues normally swept under the carpet, including one called Our Menopause.
announcing the programmers for ttff/23
We’re delighted to announce the esteemed panel of programmers selecting films for the 18th edition of the trinidad+tobago film festival. The ttff/23 programming team is composed of film curators, producers, historians, writers and directors from Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom and Cuba. They will select all the films for the 2023 film programme, as well as choose the films shortlisted for competition.
Ivonne Cotorruelo is a Cuban film curator and former producer based in New York, who has been empowering storytellers for over a decade. She is a features programmer at Cleveland International Film Festival CIFF, Miami International Film Festival MIFF, Outfest LA, trinidad+tobago film festival. She has served as juror for film festivals around the globe, and as reviewer for The Chicken and Egg fund, Warner Media New Voices Initiatives, Black and Latino Inclusion Fellowship in LA, and Disney. A Berlinale Talent Campus alumnus, she is always seeking out stories for underrepresented voices. and working on a plan of strategic diversity, equity and inclusion.
Danielle Dieffenthaller has over 20 years of experience in the television and film industry. She is the owner/producer/director of Dieffenthaller Style Films Ltd, which produced the popular programmes “Iere Vibe” and “The Reef”. She was the main force behind the television production company Earth TV Ltd, and producer/director and co-writer of the acclaimed “Ecowatch” series and the long-running “Westwood Park” (100 episodes). Dieffenthaller’s resumé includes work with TTT, UK-production company Bandung Productions and the groundbreaking production house Banyan Productions, where she and one other crew member were the only local crew to capture the events of the 1990 attempted coup. She is a co-founder of FILMCO and the 2019 Arts and Letters Laureate of the Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Awards for Excellence.
Jim Kolmar is an independent programmer who curated films for South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW) from 2009-2020, where he continues to consult on international and feature films. He is also currently programming for trinidad+tobago film festival, and was a founding committee member at Festival Internacional de Cine Tulum (FICTU). Jim was also a guest curator for Portland International Film Festival 2021. Jim is a contributing writer for Ambulante Film Festival in Mexico, and has served on juries, panels and committees for organisations including Austin Film Society, BAFICI, Berlinale, Bogotá Audiovisual Market (BAM), CONNeXT, CPH:DOX, IDFA, IFFPanama, IN-EDIT Barcelona, San Sebastián, and Ventana Sur.
Dr Bruce Paddington Bruce Paddington (PhD) is a filmmaker, academic and film festival curator. He was a senior lecturer in film at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and the co-founder of the Bachelor of Arts Film Programme. He is the founder of Banyan Productions, the New World Film Centre and the trinidad+tobago film festival and was the festival director from 2006–19. He is a programmer for trinidad+tobago film festival.
BC Pires was called to the bar of Trinidad and Tobago in 1984 and enrolled as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales in 1989 but, since January 1988, has done nothing but write for a living. His satirical column, “Thank God It’s Friday”, published more or less every Friday of the last 32 years, has been published in the Express, the Guardian and Newsday. He has tried to write sensibly about film from an informed lay perspective since 1988. He sat on the first jury of the trinidad+tobago film festival and wrote the Judges’ Report. He has also written about West Indies cricket for publications all over the world, notably, the UK Guardian and Observer newspapers. He has lived in Port of Spain, London, Georgetown and, since 2008, Barbados.
Patrice Robinson is a film programmer and writer based in London. She has volunteered at Leeds International Film Festival, Leytonstone Loves Film, Norwich International Film Festival and our very own trinidad+tobago film festival. She is currently a member of the cinema team at the Barbican Centre in London. Entering the film industry as a graduate of the Independent Cinema Office’s FEDs Scheme, Patrice is committed to programming films that speak to under served communities. Most recently, Patrice curated the season – Snapshots: Caribbean Cinema Up Close which explores Caribbean self-representation in film.
Panel: route to audience
Ultimately, if you’re building a career as a filmmaker, you’re going to need to find a way to reach an audience for your work. Audiences could be connected via sales agents and distributors to film festivals, television, online or cable broadcasts, theatrical exhibitions, etc.
In this 90-minute discussion, panellists involved in the distribution pipeline (including Jim Kolmar, programmer for SXSW; Ingrid Jahra, CEO of CinemaOne Ltd; Diane Robertson, head of programming at TTT; Gian Franco, CEO of Pavilion Studios and Marcia Smith, President of Firelight Media) will discuss the various ways in which filmmakers can forge their own routes to audiences.
logistics
date: Thursday 22 September, 2022 time: 2.30pm–4.00pm location: NALIS (AV Room) rsvp: pre-registration required. Sign up here! tickets: free of charge moderator: Mariel Brown
