Director: Chris Browne
2011, Jamaica
English
Narrative feature / 88 minutes / 16+

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Derrick is an inner-city teenager who dreams of being Jamaica’s next world boxing champion. However, it is an election year and politics divides the country and Derrick’s community. His father, a loyal party supporter, and Sin, the community’s no-nonsense don, forbid Derrick from going to the boxing gym, as to do so he has to cross party lines. Derrick defiantly follows his heart—and is confronted with the serious repercussions of his decision. An inspiring tale of overcoming adversity and ignorance in the name of unity.

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Chris Browne is one of Jamaica’s best-known filmmakers. He wrote and directed Third World Cop, the highest-grossing film in the country’s history. He was the cinematographer on No Place Like Home (2006), the final film of Perry Henzell, who made The Harder They Come (1972), on which Browne also worked.

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Fri 23 Sept 6.30pm*, 12 Carmody Street, St Augustine (UWI)

Fri 23 Sept 7.00pm, Community Centre, Charlotteville, Tobago

Sun 25 Sept 7.00pm*, The Little Carib Theatre

Tues 04 Oct 7.30pm, MovieTowne

Director: Stevan Riley
2011, UK
English
Documentary feature / 87 minutes

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From the late 1970s right through the 1980s, the West Indies cricket team did not lose a single Test series—and thus became one of the greatest teams in sporting history. This is the electrifying story of how they did it, in their own words. During a politically and socially turbulent era, Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd and the players they led combined skill, discipline and a fearless spirit to dominate the game on their own terms. In the process they struck a blow at the forces of prejudice worldwide, and lifted the pride of a region.

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A graduate of Oxford University, Stevan Riley worked in advertising before becoming a documentary filmmaker. His first film, Rave Against the Machine (2002), tells the story of a group of musicians during the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s, while his second, Blue Blood (2006), follows the fortunes of five Oxford students who join the university’s boxing club.

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Director: Shundell Prasad
2010, Guyana / USA
English

Narrative feature / 120 minutes / PG 13

 

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Born in Guyana and raised in New York, Reshma struggles to navigate a broken relationship with her mother, while memories of her absent father continue to haunt her. After receiving some shocking news, she returns to her native land to discover the truth about her family’s past. Weaving between a politically volatile Guyana in the late 1970s and the US in the early 1990s, this is a searching drama about exile, loss, and the ties that bind.

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Shundell Prasad is a US filmmaker of Guyanese heritage. She has worked for many major media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, CNN and the Emmy Award winning show The Amazing Race. She began her career at HBO’s documentary division. Prasad’s documentary films include Once More Removed – A Journey Back to India and Unholy Matrimony: Escape From Forced Marriage.

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Sun 25 Sept 7.00pm, MovieTowne

Tue 27 Sept 7.00pm, Holy Faith Convent, Couva

Sat 1 Oct 7.00pm*, The Little Carib Theatre

Director: Caroline Moraes-Liu
2010, Brazil
Portuguese, with English subtitles
Documentary short / 20 minutes

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Three young women compete for the title of Ebony Goddess in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil—the largest black city outside of Africa. The competition is hugely popular and plays an important role in affirming Afro-Brazilian identity and pride for women in Salvador.

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Carolina Moraes-Liu is an award-winning Brazilian director who has worked on documentaries and in television for over 10 years. Her films include the documentary Festive Land: Carnaval in Bahia, now part of the curriculum of Latin American Studies and Cultural Anthropology programmes at several universities.

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Fri 23 Sept 2.30pm, Institute of Critical Thinking, UWI
Wed 28 Sept 2.00pm, The Little Carib Theatre

Director: Pascale Obolo
2011, Trinidad+Tobago / France
English
Documentary feature / 85 minutes

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Calypso Rose, born McArtha Lewis, is the calypso queen of the world. This is her extraordinary story, a moving tale of triumph over great adversity. We follow Rose from Paris, where she is recording an album, to her native Tobago and Trinidad, then to New York where she lives, and finally to her ancestral homeland, Africa. Along the way we see many facets of Rose and come closer to understanding the woman behind the public persona.

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A native of Cameroon, Pascale Obolo is a graduate of the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français and the University of Paris. She was one of the first people to document the Parisian hip-hop and graffiti art scenes on film. Among her other films is the documentary Calypso at Dirty Jim’s (2005).

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Thur 22 Sept 7.15pm*  + Mon 03 Oct 2.00pm, MovieTowne
Sat 24 Sept 7.00pm, T&TEC Panyard, Belle Garden, Tobago

Director: Gerardo Chijona
2010, Cuba
Spanish, with English subtitles
Narrative feature / 88 minutes/ 18+

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Eunice, a teenage girl running away from her incestuous father, meets Alejandro, a rebellious rocker who has also left home. They decide to travel together, and escape to Havana, hoping to find paradise. Instead, they  encounter hardship—it is the early 1990s, the “Special Period” of deprivation in Cuba—and begin to contemplate the unthinkable: infecting themselves with the HIV virus so they can be admitted to the local AIDS hospice. An unforgettable tale of youth, love, sadness, and, ultimately, hope.

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Born in 1949, Gerardo Chijona is both a filmmaker and a film critic. He has many films to his credit, including dramas, documentaries and short films. Boleto al Paraiso, his fourth and most recent feature film, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

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Mon 26 Sept 4.30pm + Fri 30 Sept 7.00pm, The Little Carib Theatre
Sat 01 Oct 11.00am, Centre for Language Learning, UWI

Director: James O’Connor
2011, Trinidad+Tobago
English
Documentary feature / 70 minutes

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Born and raised in a rural village on the north-eastern coast of Trinidad, Chris Dennis has a dream: to become a world-recognised surfer. His considerable talent has taken him far, but to become one of the top 100 in his sport, this young man of modest means will need more than just his natural ability. Does Chris have what it takes to go all the way, or is he fated to remain between worlds?

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James O’Connor is the director of jtography, an award-winning corporate photography and film production company in Trinidad. Chris Dennis: Between Worlds is his first film.

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Mon 26 Sept 5.00pm*, MovieTowne

Director: Storm Saulter
2010, Jamaica
English
Narrative feature / 104 minutes / 16+

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In Kingston, Jamaica, in the late 1970s, the two main political parties enlist the support of gangs to enforce their policies and advance their political agenda. Young Ricky is a community leader whose gang is aligned to one party. One day he meets Kamala, who belongs to a community controlled by the other party, and the two instantly connect. Will their love triumph, or will bigger forces win the day? Based on true events.

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Hailing from Jamaica, Storm Saulter studied filmmaking in Los Angeles before returning to his native land. He has directed a number of music videos and short films, and was instrumental in setting up the New Caribbean Cinema filmmakers’ collective in 2009. Better Mus’ Come is his debut feature film.

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Sat 24 Sept 7.00pm + Fri Sept 30 4.30pm*, MovieTowne

Mon 26 Sept 7.00pm, Trevor’s Edge, St Augustine

 

 

Director: João Daniel Tikhomiroff
2009, Brazil
Portuguese, with English subtitles
Narrative feature / 86 minutes / 14+

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Besouro is a fantasy action movie set in 1920s Brazil and inspired by the life of a legendary capoeira fighter from Bahia. At a time when the Afro-Brazilian martial art was banned by the Portuguese colonial rulers, the fearless Besouro uses his incredible fighting skills, and protection from the Orixà gods, to oppose the local authorities, so incurring the wrath of plantation police boss, Colonel Venâncio.

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Director João Daniel Tikhomiroff grew up around film, as son of Daniel Michael Tikhomiroff, a former director of Universal Pictures’ division in Brazil. He is an internationally acclaimed advertising art director and has also made several documentaries. Besouro is his first feature film.

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Wed 21 Sept 2.00pm + Fri 30 Sept 7.00pm, MovieTowne

Director: Guy Deslauriers
2009, Martinique
French, with English subtitles
Narrative feature/110 minutes

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A powerful drama based on the true story of André Aliker, who was the editor of a socialist newspaper in 1930s Martinique. Aliker (played by French hip-hop star, Stomy Bugsy) is determined to speak out against injustice and to champion the rights of working people. For his ideals and fearlessness, he gets on the wrong side of the most powerful in society. With a script by renowned Martinican novelist Patrick Chamoiseau.

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Martinican director Guy Deslauriers is best known in the English-speaking world for his 2000 movie Passage du milieu (Middle Passage) which aired on HBO and starred Djimon Honsou. He was assistant director for Euzhan Palcy’s La Rue Cases Nègres (1982), and has directed several dramatic films and documentaries, including the award-winning L’Exil du roi Béhanzin (1993).

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This film is presented in association with the European Film Festival and supported by the Alliance Francaise.

Wed 28 Sept 7.00pm*, Alliance Française, Alcazar Street, St Clair

Fri 30 Sept 4.30pm*, The Little Carib Theatre

Sat 1 Oct 3.30pm*, Centre for Language Learning, UWI