At the recently concluded T&T Film Festival, there was a renewed focus on local films. Green Days By the River, a local feature based on the Michael Anthony novel, opened the Festival and is still running at cinemas. There was also a fantastic response to short films like Maya Cozier’s Short Drop and Shari Petti’s Sorf Hair. Away from the glare of the Festival spotlight, however, there was an extremely important educational event taking place. The British Council teamed up with the T&T Film Festival to host development training for filmmakers in the form of a scriptwriting workshop with British script development consultant Ludo Smolski.

T&T films dominated the People’s Choice Awards at the T&T Film Festival Awards ceremony on Tuesday —with the film-viewing audience giving a resounding nod to Oliver Milne’s Salty Dog as the People’s Choice Best Short Film; Shari Petti’s Sorf Hair as People’s Choice Best Documentary and Michael Mooleedhar’s Green Days by the River as People’s Choice Best Narrative Feature. Each received a $5,000 cash prize sponsored by Flow.

It was a great night for Green Days by the River as it also picked up the Jury Award for Best TT Feature Film, with a cash prize of $10,000 sponsored by the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts, a release said.

Another local film getting the Jury’s nod was Maya Cozier’s Short Drop—for Best T&T Short, with a cash prize of $5,000 sponsored by the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts. Scattered by Georgia Popplewell and Karen Martinez won Best T&T Film in Development with a cash prize of $10,000. This BPTT-sponsored Award seeks to support the completion of a local feature film currently in pre-production, which is to be made in this country by a T&T resident or national.