Generations of Caribbean readers know Shell’s and Rosalie’s story well. Shell and Rosalie, the main characters in Michael Anthony’s 1967 novel Green Days by the River, will now share their story with upcoming generations, through film.
The beloved story will open this year’s Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (ttff). It is one of four TT features and over 34 local shorts that will premiere at the festival this year. A red carpet gala and screening of the adaptation, which carries the same name, will be held on September 19 at the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA).

It is also the first local film by a TT director and producer to open the annual film festival.

SELWYN JACOB, then ten or 11, sat in the theatre and saw what he did not want to see on the screen. It is knowing what he did not want to see, which led him to changing the narratives of immigrants and black-Canadians.
The Trinidadian- born, award-winning Canadian documentary film-maker’s work with Mina Shum on The Ninth Floor has changed how the world viewed the six Caribbean students who mounted a protest against institutional racism at the Sir George Williams University, Canada, in the late 1960s.

Jacob produced the film and reframed the perspective surrounding the events which led to Caribbean students, Trinidadians among them, being deported from Canada and damage to the university’s computer centre.

But if Jacob’s story is known, one would know that he has always sought to change perceptions.

In telling Newsday how he got into film-making, Jacob said: “I think it must have been when I was about ten or 11. I remember going to a movie theatre in Trinidad and I saw the movies of the day. As a matter of fact, they gave charitable showings like Joan of Arc and the teachers would take the entire school out. On Saturdays there were matinees and some of the schools would go. I must have seen one of the pictures and I looked at the movie and I looked at how the Africans were depicted in those movies. They looked to me as though they were silly. They came across as a caricature…I kept thinking if I were making a movie and setting it in Trinidad and they [would] see people the way that I would [see them], not behaving like buffoons.

TONIGHT, the curtain will come down of the trinidad+- tobago film festival’s (ttff) Community Cinergy open air cinema series, sponsored by bpTT, with the screening of Miles Ahead at the San Fernando Hill, at 7 pm. The film is expected to bring to life the legendary jazz musician Miles Davis (1926 – 1991), who was at the forefront of a number of major stylistic developments in jazz over his five-decade career.
This series started with the airing of All Oceans Blue on April 1, a documentary on famed TT sailor Harold La Borde, that was held at the TT Sailing Association, Chaguaramas, and a week later, at Lange Park Recreation Grounds in Chaguanas, the airing of The World of Goopi and Bagha, an animation film in Hindi.

Johanna Thomas, public relations and marketing co-ordinator at the ttff said the ttff celebrates films from and about the Caribbean and its diaspora, as well as from world cinema, through an annual festival and year-round screenings.

She said the ttff seeks to facilitate the growth of Caribbean cinema by offering a wide-ranging industry programme and networking opportunities.

THE trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) is inviting all Tobago-based film-makers to sign up for its one-day, intensive film development workshop to be held on April 22, as part of the inaugural Tobago Jazz Film Festival.
The Tobago Jazz Film Festival, presented by Flow and the ttff, will be held from April 21 to 25.

Fifteen participants will get the opportunity to strengthen their film-making skills under the guidance of experienced film professionals including Tobagonian film-maker Jared Prima, former UWI film school lecturer and founder of the ttff Dr Bruce Paddington and screenwriter, actor and director Tony Hall. Training will include the basics of film production, scriptwriting, camera and sound, said a media release.

THE trinidad+tobago film (ttff) festival heads back outside in April for three nights of open air cinema in Chaguaramas, Chaguanas and San Fernando, as part of its Community Cinergy Series, sponsored by bpTT.
The films, featuring creative geniuses who push the boundaries of “bold-facedness” and daring, are free, and offer a great night out under the stars for friends and families.

Films include an animation in Hindi with English subtitles suitable for all ages, a fictional narrative about jazz-legend, Miles Davis, and All Oceans Blue – a documentary made by and about the around-the world-adventures of local seafarer, Harold La Borde.

THOUGH he studied biology at university, Ludo Smolski was drawn to other things.

“I was interested in many fields but the English system forces you to choose a lot earlier on,” he says. “I was around people who were producing theatre and making short films. I was just interested in entertainment.” Smolski, 42, is leading a fiveday workshop being put on by the British Council in partnership with the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival designed to strengthen the local film industry.

A similar exercise was done in early March in Jamaica, in partnership with film bodies there.

“I feel quite lucky that I have managed to carve out some kind of existence in the creative industries,” Smolski says during a break.

THE trinidad+- tobago film festival (ttff) has joined forces with the Canadian High Commission to offer a three-day intensive, basic screenwriting workshop for emerging film-makers who have already written at least one short screen play (film script). The workshop will be held from March 24 to 26.

Under the guidance of Canadian-Jamaican film professional, Annmarie Morais, ten to 15 participants will be given the opportunity to develop the craft of screenwriting to international standards.

SIXTEEN local film-makers and writers have been selected to participate in the British Council’s script development workshop, to be held in partnership with the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff).

The participants were chosen after an open call for applications, in which they had to submit their own script or write a critique of someone else’s.

The selection panel comprised a representative of the British Council, the ttff and an independent adjudicator. In keeping with the British Council’s transparency policies, the identity of the applicants remained unknown to the judges until their final selections were made.

In a move designed to strengthen the local film industry, the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) has partnered with the British Council to host a participatory workshop for story (script) editors, screenwriters and producers from March 8 to 12, in Port-of-Spain.

The workshop will bring together up to 15 film professionals and will cover key issues common to script development and the role of the script editor in that process.