Jury awards

Best film made in the Caribbean spirit: Children of God, Kareem Mortimer, the Bahamas

Best film made in the Caribbean spirit, special mention: Alamar, Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio, Mexico

Best Trinidad & Tobago film: Julia & Joyce, Sonja Dumas

Best short film: The Legend of Buchi Fil, German Gruber, Curaçao

Acting awards

Best local actor: Errol Roberts, Quiet Desperation

Best local actress: Helen Jones, Quiet Desperation

Best local actor, special mention: Arnold Goindhan, Dark Tales From Paradise

Best local actress, special mention: Ria Ali, Dark Tales From Paradise

People’s Choice Awards

Best feature film: Children of God, Kareem Mortimer, the Bahamas

Best documentary film: Waste Land, Lucy Walker, Brazil/UK

Best short film: The Blood and the Bois, Sigmond Cromwell, T&T;

trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2010
Duration	40 minutes
Type	Documentary
Country	Trinidad and Tobago
Language	English
Director(s)	Tracy Assing, Sophie Meyer
Rating	All Ages
Contact	mybones@gmail.com |sophiemey@googlemail.com

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“The only real Caribs are dead Caribs.” In this revealing film, Tracy Assing seeks to put to rest that historical saw. Assing was raised a member of the Santa Rosa Carib Community, the only recognised group representing indigenous descendants in Trinidad and Tobago. Until now, Amerindian descendants have depended on the stories of their grandparents and great-grandparents for their history, while the indigenous story of survival has been written out of the history books. Assing walks us through her own exploration of the history of the Santa Rosa Community and, as her great aunt, the Carib Queen, prepares to join the Great Spirit, ponders an uncertain future.

World premiere.

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2008
Duration	93 minutes
Type	Dramatic feature
Country	Canada
Language	English
Director(s)	Charles Officer
Rating	PG 14
Contact	www.nursefighterboy.ca |charles.canesugar@gmail.com

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Jude is a widowed nurse, Jamaican by birth, living in Canada and battling sickle cell disease. Silence is a taciturn, ageing boxer who runs a gym for boys, and engages in illegal street fighting for money on the sly. And Ciel is Jude’s sensitive young son who, through his love of music, conjures for his mother lyrical dreams of a return to her native land.

When Silence enters Jude’s care after one of his fights the two fall in love, and Silence finds himself becoming a father figure to Ciel. Soon Jude’s illness takes a turn for the worse, and Silence becomes caught up in a potentially fatal dispute with a gangster. Yet when it appears that all is lost, fate intervenes—and Jude’s dream of going home to Jamaica is fulfilled in a way she could never have expected.

Trinidad & Tobago premiere

Awards: Best Actress, Atlantic Film Festival 2008; Best in World Cinema Audience Award, Sarasota Film Festival 2008; Audience Prize and Jury Citation, Feature Film, Mannheim Heidelberg Film Festival 2009

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2010
Duration	20 minutes
Type	Dramatic short
Country	Kenya
Language	English
Director(s)	Wanuri Kahiu
Rating	All Ages
Contact	www.pumzithemovie.com

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Nature is extinct. The outside is dead. Asha lives and works in a specially designed indoor community. When she receives a box in the mail containing soil, she plants an old seed in it, and the seed starts to germinate. Asha appeals for permission to investigate the possibility of life on the outside, but is denied. Asha’s only hope—and the only hope for humankind—is for her to break out of the community and seek a place where she can plant the precious seedling.

Trinidad + Tobago premiere.

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2009
Duration	24 minutes
Type	Documentary short
Country	UK
Language	English
Director(s)	Adam Low
Rating	PG
Contact	adamcraydenlow@yahoo.com

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Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is arguably the greatest romantic novel of the nineteenth century, with the handsome, sadistic Heathcliff at its centre. Yet who is Heathcliff? Where does his destructive anger come from? Might Emily Brontë be hinting at a far darker secret than has previously been suspected? This provocative documentary—featuring commentary by acclaimed writer Caryl Philips—examines the themes of slavery and race coded into Brontë’s book, and discovers some uncanny parallels in the slave-owning families of Yorkshire.

Trinidad + Tobago premiere.

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2010
Duration	33 minutes
Type	Documentary
Country	Trinidad and Tobago
Language	English
Director(s)	Mandisa Pantin
Rating	All Ages
Contact	lygrette@gmail.com

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This documentary examines the concept of African identity as it has evolved over the generations in Trinidad and Tobago. In it, the director explores her own identity, using the Emancipation Day parade and its rituals as a starting point for her journey. Interviews with African-Caribbean people and scholars define and explain some of the complexities of race in this society.

World premiere.

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2009
Duration	14 minutes
Type	Dramatic short
Country	Ethiopia
Language	Amharic, with English subtitles
Director(s)	Zelalem Woldemariam
Rating	All Ages
Contact	www.ethiopianfilminitiative.org

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This is a tale about the need for environmental conservation, couched in the touching story of a homeless boy in search of a meal. The elderly village schoolteacher promises the boy some money if he will help in a tree-planting exercise. Yet when he finally goes to buy a loaf of bread, he finds the money is missing.

Trinidad & Tobago premiere

Awards: Best Short Film – Youth Jury Award, Taarifa International Film Festival (2010).

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2009
Duration	53 minutes
Type	Documentary feature
Country	USA / Dominican Republic
Language	Spanish, with English subtitles
Director(s)	Adam Taub
Rating	All Ages
Contact	http://www.bachatamovie.com |adam_taub@hotmail.com

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Bachata is a musical genre from the Dominican Republic that evolved from bolero and is characterized by its distinctive lead guitar and the sensual dance it inspires. Although it was frowned upon and repressed within its own country of origin, bachata is now enjoying increased popularity worldwide. One of its practitioners is 37-year-old Joan Soriano, who is on the edge of international success.

The bachatas and merengues Soriano plays draw upon a variety of musical influences from Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. He is also a practitioner of Afro-Dominican traditional salve and palo, and he blends these percussive styles with guitar-based bachata to create a fresh sound. The Duke of Bachata is alive with Dominican music and culture, and is an intimate portrait of one man’s hopes, fears and dreams, and how much his success means to his family and community.

Trinidad + Tobago premiere.

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2009
Duration	100 minutes
Type	Dramatic feature
Country	Brazil
Language	Portuguese, with English subtitles
Director(s)	Daniela Thomas, Felipe Hirsch
Rating	18 And Over
Contact	danielathomas@uol.com.br

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Insolação tells stories of unrequited love. “Love and loss. Loss, mostly,” says one character. In an empty city, scorched by the sun, young and old confuse the fever of sunstroke with the delicate birth of passion. Like ghosts, they hover through buildings and over endless flatland in search of the ever-elusive love, while the film’s nostalgic narrator, Andrei, bears witness to their tales.

Based loosely on a series of stories by Anton Chekov, the various plots of the film weave together and unravel in the improbable city of Brasilia—a distorted mirror image of Soviet utopia—located in the heart of the country.

Trinidad & Tobago premiere.

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2010
Duration	108 minutes
Type	Dramatic feature
Country	South Africa / Germany
Language	Xhosa and English, with English subtitles
Director(s)	Stefanie Sycholt
Rating	All Ages
Contact	www.themba-movie.com

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Like many 11-year-old boys in South Africa, Themba dreams of playing for Bafana Bafana, the national football team. When his mother loses her job, she departs their home in rural Eastern Cape to look for work in Cape Town, leaving Themba and his sister in the care of her lover. After Themba undergoes a traumatic experience, he and his sister decide to go to find their mother, even though his football team is on the verge of winning the local junior championships.

In Cape Town, Themba and his sister find their mother dying of Aids. Though he must work to care for the family, Themba does not give up on his dream. Against the odds, he is selected to play for the national under-20 squad. This gives him the strength to come forward and make a courageous public admission.

Trinidad & Tobago premiere

Awards: Golden Dhow – Best Feature Film, Zanzibar International Film Festival 2010

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