The trinidad+tobago film festival and bpTT have launched a search for the Best TT Film in Development, which comes with the chance to win a cash prize of $10,000, towards the completion of the film.

Sponsored by bpTT,  the award is for a narrative or documentary feature film in pre-production.

According to Danielle Jones, Manager, Corporate Communications at BPTT, “The Award is part of BPTT’s continuing investment in the cultural sector of Trinidad and Tobago, as we recognise the enormous social and economic benefits that culture can offer to our country – including helping with economic diversification. Our long history of support for the arts includes the showcasing of local films through the trinidad+tobago film festival, investment in films that speak to, or support, our rich cultural traditions such as this year’s Green Days by the River and To Be a Renegade – and of course, supporting emerging filmmakers with great potential.”

To be eligible, applicants must be a citizen or resident of Trinidad and Tobago, and be working on a film that’s made in Trinidad and Tobago.

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For the sixth straight year, the University of the West Indies (UWI) Film Programme will partner with the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff), which runs from 17 September to 01 October, to host a series of film screenings, workshops and other events during the upcoming Festival.

This year the events will take place at the Film Programme’s new building at 12 Carmody Road, St Augustine.

Things kick off on 18 September with a film-producing workshop with Andrea Calderwood, from 10am to 1pm. Calderwood is the producer of films such as The Last King of Scotland (2006), which won an Oscar for star Forest Whitaker, and Half of a Yellow Sun (2013), an epic account of the Biafran war starring Thandie Newton, which opens the ttff/13.

Events continue with a day of documentary films on September 20. The lineup is: No Bois Man No Fraid (10am), a documentary about stickfighting by local filmmaker Christopher Laird; Fatal Assistance (11.45am), about the aftermath of Haiti’s devastating earthquake; Songs of Redemption (1:30PM), about the rehabilitation of prison inmates in Jamaica through reggae music; and at 3.15pm, Forward Ever: The Killing of a Revolution, by UWI lecturer Dr Bruce Paddington, about the events leading to the US invasion of Grenada in 1983.

On 21 September a collection of UWI student films will be screened from 7pm. They include The Gang That Walks, which looks at the men of the controversial Nation of Islam in Trinidad and Tobago; If I Could Fly, the story of an unhappy young girl whose wish is to fly like her kite; Lime of the Dead, a comedy about a group of young men whose friend becomes a zombie; and Mystic Blue, about a couple that try to hold their relationship together despite their different beliefs.

Then on 24 September a series of Caribbean fiction films will be screened. These are: I Am a Director (12pm), a comedy from Puerto Rico; The Kid Who Lies (1:45pm), a Venezuelan film about a 13-year-old’s search for his mother; Melaza (3:45pm), a Cuban drama about a couple’s struggle to make ends meet; and at 5:30pm, God Loves the Fighter, a film by T&T’s Damian Marcano about a young man from east Port of Spain who reluctantly begins working for a gang leader.

On 25 September at 6:30pm, the film festival welcomes Dr. Malini Guha, assistant professor of Film Studies at Carleton University, Canada, who will give a lecture about the cinematic representation of Caribbean life and culture in London. Then on 26 September at 7.00pm Dr Gabrielle Hezekiah, lecturer in the Department of Literature, Communication and Cultural Studies, will host a package of films from the ttff/13’s New Media programme, co-curated with ARC magazine.

From 2pm on 28 September there will be a screening of films from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, which will be introduced by their curator, Dr Mary Leonard.

Finally, on 30 September, Festival events on campus come to a close with a retrospective of the films of John Akomfrah. Several of the acclaimed director’s works will be screened, including his newest film, The Stuart Hall Project, about the famed Jamaican-British intellectual. Akomfrah himself will attend the retrospective.

All events, except the Andrea Calderwood workshop are free and open to the public. To register for the workshop, call 621.0709.

Image: A still from Mystic Blue

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A selection of films by the acclaimed British director John Akomfrah will screen at the 2013 trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff), which runs from 17 September to 01 October.

Known as one of the founders of black British cinema, Akomfrah, who will attend the ttff/13, has made dozens of films in a career stretching back almost 30 years. He has earned scores of international film awards and prizes and other honours, including an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List. He is also a governor of the British Film Institute.

Of Ghanaian heritage, Akomfrah was a founding member of the Black Audio Film Collective in 1982. He produced a broad range of work within this critically lauded group, including his provocative feature debut, Handsworth Songs (1986), a documentary about race riots in Britain.

Lyrical, poetic and essayistic, Akomfrah’s films have always traversed the worlds of cinema and television, the art gallery and the film festival, community centres and cultural institutions, conferences, symposiums and academic institutions. All the while, he has maintained a concern for documenting and interrogating the Afro-Caribbean and the African experiences in the UK.

Akomfrah’s documentary The Nine Muses (2010), which used Homer’s Odyssey as a framing device to explore Caribbean and African migration to post-war Britain, was screened at the ttff/11. His film The Stuart Hall Project (2013)—a portrait of the seminal left-wing Jamaican-British intellectual, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival—will screen at the ttff/13 as part of the Festival’s tribute to him.

Four other films will screen as part of the tribute: Handsworth Songs; Who Needs a Heart (1991, a fictionalised history of the Black Power movement in Britain); The Last Angel of History (1996, an exploration of the pop-culture phenomenon known as Afrofuturism); and Peripeteia (2012, a haunting work of dialogue-free fiction inspired by portraits of black figures by the sixteenth-century German artist Albrecht Dürer).

“John Akomfrah has made a significant, original and influential contribution to cinema, providing a much-needed channel for black British voices,” said ttff editorial director Jonathan Ali. “We are proud to be hosting this tribute to him, and honoured that he will be a guest of the ttff/13.”

In addition to Akomfrah’s films playing throughout the Festival’s programme, there will be a day dedicated to him at the University of the West Indies (30 September), on which all his films in the ttff/13 programme will be shown and he will engage in a conversation about his work.

Image: A still from Peripeteia