Creating a unique and authentic story that connects with audiences across the globe is a challenge for any filmmaker. If your desire is to produce an original yet honest film you must develop a new and interesting world and, at the same time, tell a story that your and other cultures can relate to and that feels authentic. Panellists from across the region will go in-depth in this 90-minute discussion on how to remain authentic in your work as a Caribbean storyteller while creating material that resonates with an international audience.
New Media Panel
Wed 22 September, 3.00–4.30 p.m. (est) location: Facebook Live, YouTube Live,ttfilmfestival.com tickets: free moderator: Melanie Archer panellists: Lisa-Marie Harris, Ada M. Patterson, Alicia Diaz, Keoni K. Wright, Laura Iancu, Richard Mark Rawlins
A discussion with creatives selected for trinidad+tobago film festival 2021.
Documentary Filmmakers Panel
Sat 25 Sept, 5.00–6.30 p.m. (est) location: Facebook Live, YouTube Live, ttfilmfestival.com tickets: free moderator: Janine Mendes-Franco panellists: Alexandra Warner, Eleonore Coyette, François Gruson, Nicola Cross, Rudy Hypolite, Ian Harnarine
A discussion with filmmakers selected for the trinidad+tobago film festival 2021.
A discussion with filmmakers selected for trinidad+tobago film festival 2021.
in competition: youth jury films
Under the mentorship of film critic and ttff/21 festival programmer, BC Pires, the Youth Jury allows young people to take part in reasoned, if passionate, debate about film. Many jury members have gone on to study film at university and several now work in the industry. The Youth Jury has proved to be a gateway and developmental path for young future film industry professionals. The Youth Jury views and considers for award recognition, films which focus on young protagonists dealing with coming-of-age issues, challenges and triumphs.
Presented with the support of the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC), this year’s retrospective seeks to honour and celebrate the work of vanguard director and photographer, Horace Ové, with online screenings of some of his most recognised and important films: “Baldwin’s Nigger”, “King Carnival”, “Pressure”, “Playing Away”, “The Ghost of Hing King Estate” and “Black Safari” (which he didn’t direct but in which he had a starring on-screen role).
With an impressive, groundbreaking body of work, Horace Ové is the most important filmmaker from Trinidad and Tobago and one of the Caribbean’s masters. Ové was born in Belmont, a cosmopolitan suburb of Port of Spain, where he proudly proclaimed, “every colour, class, creed and race lived side by side”. His early love of film was nurtured by frequenting the local Olympic cinema where he and his friends used to sit in the cheapest pit seats, providing commentary and interacting with the Hollywood stars on the screen, often having seen the films a number of times. The films used to break down and the members of pit made sure to roundly heckle the projectionist.
Belmont was a centre for Carnival, and other cultural activities, and Horace’s family was right in the middle of it. In fact, Ové’s brother, Valmond, played Nero in the Carnival band, “Imperial Rome”. Ové carried this rich culture with him when, in 1960, as did many other West Indians, he left Trinidad to live in England, the “mother country”. He went to study painting, photography and interior design but soon became involved with film. He was an extra on the Hollywood epic, “Cleopatra” (1963), but the film ran into major problems forcing it to move location from London to Rome. Ové travelled to Italy where he now played a soldier rather than a slave. When the film wrapped production, Ové stayed on in Italy, where he was especially influenced by Fellini, but also by De Sica, Rossellini and other members of the Italian Neorealist movement.
Returning to England, Ové went on to study film at the London School of Film Technique. He made his first film, “The Art of the Needle”(1969), a short documentary about acupuncture in Britain that was sponsored by the Acupuncture Association. This proved to be the beginning of a long and eclectic career in film and television, mainly in Britain, but also in many other countries, including the Caribbean. That same year he directed “Baldwin’s Nigger”, featuring an exchange between the American activist Dick Gregory, the celebrated African American writer James Baldwin, and a mainly black audience. They discussed and compared the experiences of black people in America and Britain during the Civil Rights Movement and the turbulent 1960s. In 1970, he directed another pioneering film, “Reggae”, an exploration of the beginnings of the reggae movement. This was the first film on the subject directed by a black person from the Caribbean. The centrepiece of the film is a concert at Wembley stadium featuring Toots and the Maytals, Desmong Dekker and others, while the film also questioned the paradoxical involvement of white skinheads with reggae music.
“The Black Safari” (1972) saw Ové in a different role, that of presenter, in this parody of an African safari where Ové, and his black colleagues, go on an expedition in a canal boat looking for the “real” England. The locals looked on in amazement. “Playing Away” (1986), directed by Ové, explored similar themes in an amusing look at culture shock as a West Indian cricket team from Brixton is invited to play a cricket match against a white village team, to mark the conclusion of “Third World Week”.
With“King Carnival”(1973), Ové returned to his roots, to film in Trinidad during Carnival celebrations. The film explores the role of Carnival in the society, and the influence of African cultural traditions. It is by far the best of the number of films made on the subject. However, his tour de force was “Pressure” (1976). With a screenplay by famed Trinidadian writer, Samuel Selvon, “Pressure” was Ové’s first narrative feature film, and has the distinction of being the first independent feature film made in Britain by a Black director. The film was controversial as it explored the racism and xenophobia faced by West Indian immigrants and their children (now first and second generation British) in England – it was shelved for nearly three years by its funders, the British Film Institute (BFI). The timing and focus of the film were prescient: within a few years of its release, the streets of Brixton, Birmingham and Bristol exploded into riots, as angry and disenfranchised members of the Black British community took to the streets in protest against police harassment and the contentions ‘sus’ laws related to stop and search.
Other films shot in the Caribbean included a mini series for television, “The Orchid House” (1991) produced by Ové and Annabelle Alcazar. Based on a novel of the same name by Phyllis Shand Allfrey, it was shot on location in Dominica and featured a white plantation family witnessing the decline of the British colonial order and the beginnings of the independence movement. Back home in Trinidad, Ové directed his last dramatic feature film “The Ghost of Hing King Estate” (2009), produced by Francis Escayg, and starring Wendell Manwarren and Teri-Leigh Bovell. The film was based on a true story about the mysterious deaths on a local cocoa estate. It had limited exposure, but was enthusiastically received at a screening at the British Film Institute.
Horace Ové was awarded the Hummingbird Medal by the government of Trinidad and Tobago in 1992, and was made Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by the British government in 2007. These tributes represent over fifty years of creative film and television production, while his photographs have been displayed at the National Portrait Gallery and form part of the Arts Council’s permanent collection.
“I am a filmmaker and a black filmmaker, but that doesn’t mean I am only going to make black films. I’ve tried not to do that in my career as that limits me as an artist. I’ve always wanted to film about anything, anywhere, and anybody”.
Horace Ové
Ové continued, “I’ve always wanted to produce quality films [and] I made up my mind that I’m going to make films as good as anybody else in any country – England, France or wherever.”
And this is what he has done.
~ Dr Bruce Paddington
*Please note, retrospective films are made available to viewers in the Caribbean only. Please check our schedule for show dates.
announcing the ttff/21 juries
We are honoured to introduce the jury members who will be judging the competition films at ttff/21. Each jury is given a list of criteria on which they must score each film. Marks for each film are collated, and the film with the highest overall score in any given category wins the jury prize for that category.
narrative jury
Vashti Anderson Vashti Anderson is a filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. Her background includes an MFA in Film from New York University, independent film and television crewing experience in New York City, and an award-winning filmmaking and writing career. Her recent narrative feature film, “Moko Jumbie”, had its world premiere at LA Film Festival and ended its festival run at Edinburgh International Film Festival, also screening at Bentonville, Curaçao International Film Festival Rotterdam, Caribbean Film Series at BAMcinematek, ttff and others. It won the Chris Columbus/Richard Vague Film Production Award, the Canon Filmmaker Award from Film Independent, Best Screenplay at the Bahamas IFF Filmmaker Residency Program and Best Screenplay at Mosaic International South Asian Film Festival. It is currently being distributed by Indiepix, playing on Amazon Prime and other platforms.
Diana Cadavid Diana Cadavid is a Colombian/Canadian curator of film and new media, with wide experience in international film festivals. She’s currently the artistic director of the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF) and the Festival Internacional de Cine de Cali (FICCALI) and Ibero–American programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Cadavid has also worked as associate director of program and industry for the Miami Film Festival (MFF) and director of programming for the International Film Festival of Panama (IFF Panamá). Diana produced and edited the short films “Breathe the Night”, “Bleiben”, “Still Life with Echo” and “Define Solidarity”, directed by Álvaro Girón. She was the production manager for the feature film, “Mañana a esta hora” (“This Time Tomorrow”) by Lina Rodriguez.
Kareem Mortimer Kareem Mortimer is a Bahamian director of narrative films, documentaries, music videos, commercials and experimental films. He believes in creating unique, powerful and beautiful images that resonate with audiences long after being seen. His films have been distributed in 40 countries with airings on PBS, Aspire, Showtime, NBC, Logo and Canal 22. His feature films include “Cargo” and “Children of God”; television shows include “Hip-Hop Nation: Notes from the Underground”, “The Electronic Lounge”, “This Is Paradise” and “Extraordinary Cuisine”. Over the course of his career, Kareem has won over 35 awards for his work, including two Icon Awards and an African Movie Academy Award. He is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents and Toronto International Film Festival Talent Lab. He served as curator of the film programme at The Island House Cinema for five years and creative director of The Island House Film Festival for three years.
documentary jury
Jonathan Ali Jonathan Ali is a film curator and programmer. Based in London, he is director of programming for Third Horizon Film Festival in Miami, Florida. He is a programme consultant for Sheffield DocFest and London’s Open City Documentary Festival; a programmer for the experimental Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival in Scotland; and a programmer for the international features section of Tribeca Film Festival. He is a member of Criterion’s Curatorial Advisory Board and the UK’s Independent Cinema Office’s Screening Days Advisory Group. Previously, he had programming roles at London’s East End Film Festival, trinidad+tobago film festival and TIFF. He is co-founder of The Twelve30 Collective, which screens Caribbean cinema in the UK, and is a 2021 Flaherty Seminar Fellow.
Selwyn Jacob Selwyn Jacob joined the National Film Board’s BC & Yukon Studio in 1997 and went on to produce over 50 NFB films. His many credits include “Crazywater”, directed by Inuvialuit filmmaker Dennis Allen; “Hue: A Matter of Colour”, directed by Vic Sarin and “Mighty Jerome”, written and directed by Charles Officer. Jacob’s most recent feature documentary credits include Mina Shum’s “Ninth Floor” about the infamous Sir George Williams Riot of 1969, which was selected for TIFF’s 2015 annual top ten list of Best Canadian Films, and Baljit Sangra’s “Because We Are Girls”, exploring the impact of sexual abuse on a conservative Indo-Canadian family living in small-town British Columbia. Selwyn retired from the NFB in June, 2019. Selwyn has since returned to the private sector as an independent producer/director.
Karen McMullen Karen McMullen is a features programmer at Tribeca Film Festival and DOC NYC Film Festival, director of programming at the TIDE Film Festival, and screens for Sundance Film Festival. She’s a juror at the Pan African and Bentonville Film Festivals, Black Public Media and the Cinema Eye Honors. She moderates live and virtual filmmaker Q+As and panels for the African Film Festival, Pure Nonfiction, Netflix, NYWIFT, Women Make Movies and HBO screenings. She’s a frequent guest speaker on television, radio and at filmmaking organisations. A Brown University graduate, McMullen is a post-production professor at Long Island University. She has picture and sound editing credits on features, documentaries, and short films.
new media jury
Dr. Daniela Fifi Dr. Daniela Fifi is an art educator and curator who has worked in museums and galleries in the Caribbean and US. She is the former chief curator at the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas and former curatorial specialist at The National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago. She is a doctoral graduate in Art and Art Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute, New York and a Master of Arts in Art Gallery and Museum Studies from the University of Manchester, UK. Her doctoral research focuses on Caribbean art and intercultural programming in museums. Daniela has been awarded several fellowships and awards during her career including the New York State Assembly, Caribbean Life Impact Award; the Museum Education Research Fellowship at the Whitney Museum of American Art; and the Samuel H. Kress Interpretive Fellowship. She is currently the managing editor of Small Axe Visualities: A Caribbean Platform for Criticism, a project of the Small Axe Journal and also serves on the peer-review board for Viewfinder and The Art Education Journal, journals of the National Art Education Association (USA).
Zak Ové Zak Ové is a British/Caribbean artist with a multidisciplinary practice across sculpture, film and photography. His work is informed, in part, by the history and lore carried through the African diaspora to the Caribbean, Britain and beyond, with particular focus on traditions of masking and masquerade as tools of self emancipation. Ové’s solo presentation “The Invisible Man and The Masque of Blackness” – 40 sculptures exhibited alongside works by Rodin – was on view in the B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Garden at LACMA, Los Angeles, CA from (2019). Ové has presented solo sculpture installations in the Great Hall at the British Museum, London, UK; San Francisco Civic Centre, San Francisco, CA; Forecourt of Somerset House, London; The Ford Foundation, NY; The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; and The Slavery Museum, Liverpool among others. Ové’s work features in a number of museum collections, as well as in private foundations, including the British Museum, London; Newark Museum, New Jersey; Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida and many others. He curated the seminal and widely-acclaimed exhibition, “Get up, Stand up now: Generations of Black Creative Pioneers” at Somerset House, London in 2019.
Oneika Russell Oneika Russell is a Jamaican artist whose current art practice focuses on investigating the trope of the othered native within the paradigm of “paradise” and tourism industries. Her current work borrows imagery, techniques, and formats from the culture of craft and souvenir-making in the Caribbean, such as wall hangings, postcards and gift items. The objects and videos made explore how Afro-based figurative imagery is used as a tool in presenting culture and people as consumable products. The imagery created also investigates the role of trade, migration and unofficial economies as direct influencers of how representation occurs. Russell’s major presentations include “At the Crossroads: Critical Film and Video from the Caribbean” at Perez Museum of Art Miami in 2016 and the 2018 Dakar Biennial.
student films jury
Carver Bacchus Carver Bacchus has worked as a communications consultant since 2008 and has created documentaries, animations, corporate videos and communications programmes for a wide range of clients, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme, The German Embassy, Port of Spain, The University of the West Indies and the Institute of Marine Affairs, Trinidad and Tobago. He is the founder and managing director of Sustain T&T, a not-for-profit focused on environmental and economic sustainability education. He is also the founder and festival director of Green Screen, the Environmental Film Festival, the only environmental and sustainability-themed film festival in the English-speaking Caribbean. Carver holds a BSc in Communications and has other specialist training including a Diploma in Motion Picture Directing, a Certificate in Integrated Marketing Communication for Behavioral Impact in Health and Social Development (COMBI) and the Scrum Master I designation.
Asha Lovelace Asha Lovelace made her directing debut with the short film, “George and the Bicycle Pump”,then produced and directed the feature film, “Joebell and America”, based on a short story by her father, renowned writer Earl Lovelace. A former lecturer at the University of the West Indies, part of Lovelace’s focus has been on developing a more distinct Caribbean vision and aesthetic in film. Founder/festival director of Africa Film Trinidad and Tobago (AFTT), Asha is also the regional secretary for the Caribbean diaspora of the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers (FEPACI).
Annette Nias Annette Niasis film commissioner with the National Cultural Foundation in Barbados. For the past five decades she has played roles which include performer, director, producer and stage manager at many concerts, plays, musicals, festivals, fashion shows, film and television productions, etc., in Barbados and abroad. Nias functioned in several arts development and technical/production capacities with the National Cultural Foundation from its inception in 1983 until 2015, when she was appointed Film Commissioner with the Cultural Industries Development Authority.
in competition: new media works + student films
We are pleased to announce the new media works and student films in competition at ttff/21. Films in juried competitions are rigorously discussed and dissected before being selected by the programming team, and must be unanimously agreed by the five programmers. In the case of the new media works, the programme curator shortlists the pieces in competition.
Musgo (Moss), directed by Alexandra Guimarães + Gonçalo L. Almeida
in competition: documentary features and shorts
We are pleased to announce the short and feature length documentary films in competition at ttff/21. Films in juried competitions are rigorously discussed and dissected before being selected by the programming team, and must be unanimously agreed by the five programmers.
ttff/21 punches above its weight in second year online
For immediate release
PORT OF SPAIN, TRINIDAD, 3 September 2021 – On Wednesday 1 September 2021, trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) held a virtual press conference for its 16th edition, which officially starts on September 22, 2021. The festival, which has played an essential role in providing a platform for Caribbean filmmakers to screen their projects, joined with established corporate partners to announce the highly anticipated online activities – film screenings, workshops, and masterclasses hosted by industry veterans.
At the press conference, Lisa Burkett, Manager of Corporate Communications – National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC), highlighted the thirteen-year sponsorship of ttff by the energy company as one that is appreciated and necessary to support the film industry. “Our films tell our stories; they support livelihoods and add value to our economy; they package our culture into a commodity we can share. We are extremely proud of the groundbreaking work the ttff has done since its inception to promote and preserve our local culture, and to give our storytellers and creative visionaries a platform to be seen and heard,” Burkett said. Other notable sponsors and partners on board with ttff/21, include Shell Trinidad and Tobago Limited, Republic Bank Limited (RBL), the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, National Lotteries Control Board (NLCB) FilmTT and the US Embassy in Port of Spain.
With a packed schedule of 120 films and 22 industry events to be held online, ttff/21 plans to exceed expectations for the annual event, even during these challenging Covid-19 times. Creative online solutions have been designed for audiences to be safe and comfortable while watching films that might not be seen anywhere else.
The Opening Night of the festival will consist of premieres of ‘Candela’ by accomplished filmmaker and video artist, Andrés Farías, from the Dominican Republic, and ‘Mano Santa’by multi-winning awardee Stephanie Camacho Casillas from Puerto Rico. Audiences can also expect a retrospective of 6 films in tribute to vanguard Trinidad and Tobago director and photographer, Horace Ové, with screenings of some of his most recognised and groundbreaking work, such as King Carnival and Pressure. ‘Limin Live’ – one-on-one talk sessions with industry personalities from across the region, will also be a one-of-a-kind activity for film enthusiasts. Additionally, two prize categories – Jury Prizes and Special Awards, will be included in this year’s competition.
