A fixture of the annual trinidad+tobago film festival since 2011, we’re delighted to announce the return of new media to Medulla Art Gallery on Fitt Street in Woodbrook. The new media section of ttff comprises avant garde and experimental film and video works from artists and filmmakers in the Caribbean and diaspora.

Curated by Melanie Archer, works in our new media section can be viewed at Medulla Art Gallery weekdays (through 15 September) from 10am to 6pm, and Saturday from 11am to 2pm. All health and social distancing protocols will be in effect, with only five attendees at a time being allowed into the exhibition space. We ask that all attendees wear face masks, according to Government regulations.

works listing

group 1

Looking for “Looking for Langston”, by Ada M. Patterson
Hijo del mar (Son of the Sea), Candido Junior Bienvenido Cast
Displaced, Alex Mendez Giner

group 2

I am Sugar, by Richard Mark RawlinsIsland State of Mine, by Richard Mark Rawlins
How to break a horizon: a memory as retold by the sum of its residue, by Kearra Amaya Gopee
I cried so much I felt the universe pass through my eyes, by Luis Vasquez La Roche
Shade, by Analise Cleopatra
Alternative Facts, by Marina Santana de la Torre
El dúo de las hermanas gato (The Cat Sister’s Duet), by Marina Santana de la Torre

group 3

Goodbye to the Things, by Ian Schuler
The Whole World is Turning, by Ada M. Patterson

group 4

Wake Up, by Shinelle Ambris
Untitled, by Kelley-Ann Lindo
Howler Monkey Sex Noises at Lunchtime, by Rachel Lee
Silent Truths, by Rhiana Bonterre

group 5

Centella (Firefly), by Claudia Claremi
Palindrome, by David Parris 
Murciélago (Bat), by Claudia Claremi

The new media section comprises avant garde and experimental film and video works from artists and filmmakers in the Caribbean and diaspora. These are the works in competition for best new media work at ttff/20:

Centella (Firefly), by Claudia Claremi
Looking for ‘Looking for Langston’, by Ada M. Patterson
Murciélago (Bat), by Claudia Claremi
The Whole World is Turning, by Ada M. Patterson

synopses

Centella (Firefly)
by Claudia Claremi/ 2019/Cuba/ 17 minutes

In Cuba the flight of fireflies, in the night, is said to be like a meeting of miniature spectres, weakened fires or wandering souls. Isabel invokes them and triggers the dance.

Looking for ‘Looking for Langston’
by Ada M. Patterson/ 2018/Barbados, Netherlands/ 16 minutes

A performative video work in search of Isaac Julien’s “Looking for Langston” (1989). A captain dreams of setting sail, in search of a mysterious, intangible, comforting vision that rests at the edge of the horizon. An exploration of desire and distance, pleasure and disappointment, secrets and surprise, “Looking for ‘Looking for Langston’” is a cruise of poetic correspondence, queering sailors and transgressing horizons.

Murciélago (Bat)
by Claudia Claremi/ 2018/ Cuba/ 12 minutes

A sensory essay told through body and sound. A composition made from the trance and the vibration of macroscopic figures seen at a millimetric distance from the skin of eight people in Cuba. Inside a black hole, rapid movements fill the void. Macroscopic corporal landscapes follow one after the other to percussion in crescendo. White skin pulsates serenely and black skin wiggles, showing a face. Bright discharges explode in the air. In a slow, swaying trance, a shining eyelid reveals and then hides a liquid eye. The swelling and contracting skin of an abdomen makes deep sounds to an unrelenting beat.

The Whole World is Turning
by Ada M. Patterson/ 2019/ Netherlands/ 21 minutes

A group of lovers is visited by a familiar guest. They remark on how this guest has turned, how they have turned and how the whole world keeps turning. How will they receive this turn of events?

Image: still from ‘Murciélago‘ by Claudia Claremi

Ranging from overt political commentary to social and personal interrogations and interventions, eight experimental films will screen at the trinidad + tobago film festival (ttff) – to be held from 19 – 26 September.

The programme of experimental films is the result of an open call for submissions for work on the theme ‘Bearings’ which invited multi-disciplinary artists to submit explorations and presentations on identity, globalisation, placement/displacement, migration, contemporary politics and belonging.  (TTFF Press Release 2017)

During my residency at Alice Yard I worked with artist Luis Vasquez La Roche on a series of video, sound and printmaking projects exploring transnational encounter, language, walking and memory. Our video, Incertidumbre y Fracaso / Uncertainty and Failure, was selected for to the New Media Showcase at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival to be screened on Friday the 22nd and Monday the 25th of September.