What is the truth? And is there really such a thing as ‘“objective truth”? What responsibility do documentary filmmakers have to “the truth”?  As documentary filmmakers we are drawn to subjects that we have a genuine interest in and are guided by our innate beliefs and philosophies – these can often shape which aspects of the story we choose to focus on. So, in a sense, from the get-go, aren’t we moulding the truth to fit the story we’re telling? Are we directing the narrative, shaping it so it is received as we believe it to be or are we shedding light objectively? 

In this panel, documentary filmmakers with work in ttff/22 will discuss these and other thorny issues!

logistics

date: Saturday 24 September, 2022
time: 12.30pm–2.00pm 
location: NALIS (AV Room) 
rsvp: pre-registration required. Sign up here!
tickets: free of charge
moderator: Stanley Nelson Jr

Documentaries on historical figures create space for us to pay homage to those that paved the way for social change. Filmmaker Shola Lynch believes, as James Baldwin said, “History is not the past. It is the present.”  Lynch has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2016 and a Peabody, Emmy Award and Image Award winning filmmaker. While she has been working in film since 1997, she is best known for her independent documentaries on, and in-depth interviews with, the academic and activist, Angela Davis, and the visionary politician with Caribbean roots, Shirley Chisholm. Lynch is a master at relaying history in a meaningful, inspiring, and captivating way. Guided by her personal philosophy, she showcases her passion and brings stories told through the eyes of the people, the women, that lived them. 

In this masterclass, Lynch will take participants through a process of deconstructing how she tells stories in her films. Also to be explored: her research process; her storytelling inspiration; finding the courage to stay with a project over many years; exploring all sides of a story and embracing controversy. She will also share insights into building a twenty-five year long career in the film business as a director.

logistics

date: Tuesday 27 September, 2022
times: 10.30am–12.00pm + 12.30–2.00pm
location: NALIS (Seminar Room 2)
rsvp: pre-registration required. Sign up here!
tickets: TT$300. Tickets will cover the cost of the two sessions. They are available here.
facilitator: Shola Lynch

Advance tickets are available at ttfilmfestival.com and can also be purchased via bank transfer or in person (cash, credit card or linx) at our FILMCO office, located at 22 Jerningham Ave. 

FILMCO members, filmmakers with a film in the Festival and students with a valid photo ID, can receive a 50% discount on workshops and masterclasses! Please email Nyola at festival@filmco.org for information on payment options and to receive your discount code.

about Shola Lynch

Shola Lynch is an award-winning American filmmaker best known for the feature documentary ‘Free Angela and all political prisoners’ and the Peabody Award-winning documentary ‘Chisholm ’72: Unbought and unbossed’. Her independent film body of work and her other collaborative projects feed her passion to bring history alive with captivating stories of people, places, and events. Since 2013 she has also served as the curator of the Moving Image & Recorded Sound division of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In 2016, Shola became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  Shola is currently finishing a documentary about the American sprinter, cultural icon and still World Record holder, Flo Jo. She will also helm the Apple Original film, ‘Number One on the call sheet’, which will celebrate Black achievement in the film industry, and explore what it takes for Black actresses to find success in Hollywood. Shola believes deeply in the value of preserving history and its power in storytelling. 

Chosen from the Caribbean section which comprises feature-length films from the Caribbean, the diaspora, and films by international filmmakers made in and about the region, the narrative and documentary films in competition for the Best Feature-Length Narrative Film and Best Feature-Length Documentary award are:

narrative films:

La Imagen del Tiempo (Timeless Havana), dir. Jeissy Trompiz
Malpaso, dir. Héctor M Valdez

documentary films:

501 Not Out, dir. Sam Lockyer
A Media Voz (In a Whisper), dirs. Patricia Pérez Fernández and Heidi Hassan
Servidão (Servitude), dir. Renato Barbieri
Stateless, dir. Michèle Stephenson

synopses

narrative films

La Imagen del Tiempo (Timeless Havana)
Directed by Jeissy Trompiz/ 2019/ Cuba/ 70 minutes

Shot through the eyes of Felipe, a tortured film director trying in vain to create the authentic portrayal of love that his grandfather so easily captured in his amateur films of decades prior, his lens follows Edel and May, actors playing the characters Alejandro and Rita, strangers with different motives looking for the same girl. Their search meanders through a chaotic Havana that gets them simultaneously nowhere and entangled. Likewise, Felipe’s film meanders from scene to scene lacking a coherent thread and conclusion and leaving him unsatisfied. He is incapable of capturing the compassion in his takes that his grandfather did until he realizes that – unlike himself – his grandfather had the capacity for love. With his new-found awareness, he sets his characters free from their hopeless search.

Malpaso
Directed by Héctor M. Valdez/ 2019/ Dominican Republic, Haiti/ 80 minutes

Candido and Braulio are twin brothers growing up near the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. While Candido stays home secluded due to his albinism, Braulio helps his grandfather sell coal in the market. Their life takes a turn for the worst after the unexpected death of their grandfather. Now Braulio will need to look after his brother while attempting to make ends meet in the border town market. All the while, Candido dreams of the eventual return of their absent father.

documentaries

501 Not Out
Directed by Sam Lockyer/ 2019/ Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom/ 108 minutes

Over 25 years on from Brian Lara’s world-record-breaking innings for Warwickshire at Edgbaston in the UK, brand-new documentary “501 Not Out” tells the story of cricket’s first global superstar.

Exploring Lara’s remarkable ascent in 1994, the film celebrates his development in Trinidad and features interviews with iconic names from the world of cricket. These include his former international and county teammates from the historic treble-winning season, his friends and coaches in the Caribbean, fans who witnessed the marathon knock first hand and those inspired by his heroics. Notable contributions come from Sir Curtly Ambrose, Allan Donald, Dermot Reeve, Gladstone Small, Dennis Amiss, Jonathan Agnew, Ian Bell, Deryck Murray, Bryan Davis and Trini Posse Group co-founders Nikki Borde and Nigel Camacho.

Featuring rarely seen archive footage and stills, the film also examines the wider impact of Lara’s arrival and success at Warwickshire, coming so soon after his test record 375. “501 Not Out” brings an amazing story to life on the big screen for the very first time.

A Media Voz (In a Whisper)
Directed by Patricia Pérez Fernández and Heidi Hassan/ 2019/ Cuba, France, Spain, Switzerland/ 80 minutes

Two childhood friends entering their forties, facing the challenges of emigration, try to rebuild their lives far away from Cuba. An intimate and revealing auto-ethnographic documentary about uprootedness, motherhood, love of film, and freedom. Told through the audiovisual correspondence between two filmmakers and Cuban emigrants, it is a story of friendship and exile.

Servidão (Servitude)
Directed by Renato Barbieri/ 2019/ Brazil/ 72 minutes

A feature-length documentary about contemporary slave labour focusing on the Brazilian Amazon, “Servidão” follows the work of the Special Mobile Inspection Group of the Ministry of Labour. Through the testimony of modern abolitionists and rural workers it explores the links between contemporary slavery and a cruel slave-holding mentality that has existed in Brazil for five centuries. With narration by Negra Li, it is an important record of one of Brazil’s greatest ills.

Stateless
Directed by Michèle Stephenson/ 2020/ Canada/ 95 minutes

In 1937, tens of thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were exterminated by the Dominican army, on the basis of anti-black racism. Fast-forward to 2013 and the Dominican Republic’s Supreme Court strips the citizenship of anyone with Haitian parents, retroactive to 1929, rendering more than 200,000 people stateless. Director Michèle Stephenson’s new documentary follows the grassroots campaign of a young attorney named Rosa Iris, as she challenges electoral corruption and fights to protect the right to citizenship for all people.

Images: production stills from ‘Malpaso’, directed by Héctor M Valdez, and ‘Stateless’, directed by Michèle Stephenson

georgia popplewell and filmmaker shola lynch in conversation

.
Watch the powerful documentary, “Free Angela and All Political Prisoners”, on ttfilmfestival.com this weekend, and join us on Facebook Live for a conversation between Georgia Popplewell and Shola Lynch, writer + director of “Free Angela and All Political Prisoners”, followed by a q+a session. Sunday 12 July, at 5:00pm

“Free Angela and All Political Prisoners”, streaming this weekend at ttfilmfestival.com/watchamovieonus, is a tribute to Angela Davis, radical political activist and leader who spent five decades campaigning for racial justice and respect for black lives in the US and African diaspora. Her work around issues of gender, race, class and prisons has influenced social movements for generations. Directed by Shola Lynch, the acclaimed documentary chronicles the life of Angela Davis as a young college professor and explores how social activism implicated her in a botched kidnapping attempt that ended with a shootout, four dead, and her name on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list.

“Free Angela and All Political Prisoners” will stream to viewers in the Caribbean at ttfilmfestival.com/watchamovieonus, on Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 July, from midnight on Friday night to 11:59pm on Sunday.

Shola Lynch is an award-winning filmmaker best known for the feature documentary, “FREE ANGELA & All Political Prisoners” (streaming this weekend at ttfilmfestival.com) and the Peabody Award winning documentary “CHISOLM ’72: Unbought & Unbossed”. Her independent film body of work and her other collaborative projects feed her passion to bring history alive with captivating stories of people, places and events. Since 2013 she has also served as the Curator of the Moving Image & Recorded Sound division of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In 2016, Shola became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Georgia Popplewell is a Trinidadian writer and media producer and managing director of the international citizen media project Global Voices. She has worked in independent media since 1989 and has written extensively on culture, music, film, and sport. She started her career at the pioneering Trinidad and Tobago television production company Banyan, and is a founding member of Earth Television. She has worked on productions such as the Nickelodeon pre-school series Gullah Gullah Island and helmed the production team for the feature documentary 25 Years of West Indies Cricket. In 2005, Georgia started Caribbean Free Radio, the Caribbean’s first podcast.

The #WatchAMovieOnUs online streaming series is presented in partnership with The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago.

NOW nearing the end of its annual two-week run, the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival 2017 has once again brought to light more than 100 fabulous works of the creativity and the artistry of Caribbean peoples on screen, demonstrating the great capacity for story-telling across this region.Trinidad Express Newspapers_ Editorial _ Film festival treasury

Among this year’s offerings were three features on the importance, the relevance and the meaning of this country’s national instrument, the steelpan, to communities where they exist.

To Be A Renegade, a documentary directed by film-maker James O’Connor and produced with significant sponsorship and involvement of bpTT, is a story about the birth, the beginnings and the endurance of the band, known for decades now as BP Renegades.

From its birth in the heartland of the depressed East Port of Spain district, the band grew into a compelling force for positivity, headquartered on upper Charlotte Street.

Great focus was placed in this story, on the work of the band in nurturing young talent, with the existence of a junior band, which has captured the Junior Panorama title on four successive occasions.

It is the band management’s philosophy in action, of playing its part in coming between the energy of the area’s youth, and the possibility of falling into the society’s social cracks.

The members and the leadership of this “young Renegades” outfit tell their own tales, in their own words, about acknowledging the challenges, and equally about helping to provide alternatives for their peers. They learn the elements of leadership, of organisation, of social structure and of focus and discipline.

Today’s Republic Day observance will be a special one for Bertrand and Claudia Joseph.

The Paramin couple, who celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary on February 15, will be featured in the documentary 70 Years Together at the TT Film Festival.

The documentary will be shown at MovieTowne’s cineplexs in Port-of-Spain, San Fernando and Tobago, beginning from 1 pm.

The Josephs’ grand-daughter, Cassandra, told Sunday Newsday her grandparents story was inspirational and felt it should be shown to the world as an example of how married couples should live in an age where, according to recent statistics, the average marriage lasts only three years.

At one point, Norman Christie, bpTT’s Regional President, couldn’t get more than a sentence out about “our band” before the audience exploded into lusty applause and catcalls of appreciation.

He was at the podium offering welcoming remarks at the first official screening of To be a Renegade, a documentary his company funded to record the successes of the steelband Renegades, which it began sponsoring in 1970.

This was not just the showing of a documentary it was advertised to be; it was a celebration of champions in front of a home crowd. The band turns 70 in 2018 and was last documented comprehensively in Kim Johnson’s 2002 historical book about the band.

Many of the elements needed for an effective and compelling documentary record of Renegades as a band in 2017 are present in the film.

Film Festival season is here and there are exciting times ahead for film enthusiasts and industry practitioners.
The trinidad + tobago film festival (ttff) recently unveiled its itinerary for a weeklong film festival that will not only showcase and recognise the best films and the best talent in the industry,The festivities will run from September 19 to 26 and will involve activities such as training and outreach across the country to promote the production of local movies.

The line-up for this season is quite impressive with the spotlight on local and regional films, workshops and discussions. Filmgoers can look forward to just about 120 feature-length, short and experimental narrative and documentary films from the Caribbean and its diaspora and contemporary world cinema will be screened including five feature films and more than 30 short and experimental films from Trinidad and Tobago.

In recognition of National Patriotism Month which is observed in this country from August 31 to September 24, the ttff has partnered with the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts to showcase a day of screenings of local short and feature films. The screenings will be held on Republic Day, September 24, at MovieTowne Port of Spain, San Fernando and Tobago.

Three films on pan are also in the line-up of short and feature films that will screen at this year’s Festival. These steelband documentaries are To Be an All Star, birdsong and the James O’Connor’s film To Be A Renegade, which captures the story of bp Renegades through an examination of the violent beginnings of pan, the era of change, and its present state as a positive influence in communities, with steelbands now travelling abroad as international ambassadors. The documentary features players, founding members and supporters. Funded by bpTT the documentary seeks to show what it really means to be a Renegade. Both birdsong and To Be An All Star will screen on September 24, as part of the ttff’s day-long celebration of local films at MovieTowne.

The Film Programme at The University of the West Indies (UWI), will once again host the screening of internationally acclaimed and student made films, as part of the trinidad+tobago film festival, which runs from 19 – 26 September.

The UWI programme will take place at 12 Carmody Street, St Augustine, with a day of documentaries on Friday 22, and a showcase of student films, with Q+As, on Saturday 23 September.

Among the selection of films is La Matamoros, by Panamanian director Delfina Vidal, which won Best Picture at the International Film Festival Panama, in the Central America and Caribbean category.

Three documentaries about steelbands will make their debut at this year’s Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival, which takes place from 19 – 26 September, at MovieTowne Port of Spain, San Fernando and Tobago, as well as the University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine.

James O’Connor’s film To Be A Renegade, captures the story of the BP Renegades through an examination of the violent beginnings of pan, the era of change, and its present state as a positive influence on communities, with steelbands now travelling abroad as international ambassadors. Featuring players, founding members and supporters, the documentary funded by BP Trinidad and Tobago, seeks to show what it really means to be a Renegade. As part of its support for the film, BPTT is sponsoring a free screening of To Be A Renegade on Friday 22 September, 8:30pm, at MovieTowne Port Of Spain. Tickets will be available from the box office on a first-come-first-served basis, at the start of the Festival.