trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2009
Duration	60 minutes
Type	Documentary
Country	Trinidad and Tobago
Language	English
Director(s)	Walt Lovelace, Curtis Popplewell
Rating	All Ages
Contact	pasqual.mail@gmail.com

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The musical talent of Trinidad and Tobago is prodigious, not to mention diverse. In 2009 three young local musicians embarked on a tour to take their music to the world, and fly the flag of T&T high.

Filmed across three weeks in Europe, Live from Trinidad &Tobago is a behind-the-scenes view of the Caribbean Invasion tour featuring Maximus Dan, Marlon Asher and Jah Melody. The film follows the artists as they perform in various underground reggae/soca clubs, and shows just how far the phenomenon of Caribbean music has spread. Through candid interviews with the musicians, we get closer to the root of their passion, an understanding of what inspires and drives them, and a taste of where their careers are heading.

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2009
Duration	88 minutes
Type	Documentary Feature
Country	United States
Language	English
Director(s)	Tamra Davis
Rating	n/a
Contact	http://jean-michelbasquiattheradiantchild.com/

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Born to a Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother, Jean-Michel Basquiat went from spraying New York City walls with graffiti tagged “SAMO” in the 1970s, to rock-star status as a painter and celebrity by 1983. He achieved critical and commercial success, but was constantly confronted by racism from his peers. In 1985 he and Andy Warhol became close friends and painting collaborators, until Warhol’s death 1987. One year later, Basquiat died of a heroin overdose at 27.

This intimate documentary is based on an extensive interview director Tamra Davis filmed of Basquiat. Using rare footage and interviews with the likes of Julian Schnabel, Larry Gagosian, Fab 5 Freddy and many others who knew Basquiat, Tamra Davis details the mysteries that surround this charismatic young man, an artist of enormous talent whose fortunes mirrored the rollercoaster quality of the downtown scene he seemed to embody.

Trinidad and Tobago premiere.

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2010
Duration	16 minutes
Type	Documentary short
Country	Trinidad and Tobago
Language	English
Director(s)	Aliyah Zalim
Rating	All Ages
Contact	afleaah@yahoo.com

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Doubles is a cheap and very popular street food indigenous to Trinidad and Tobago. The short looks at many aspects of doubles, from its origins to how it is made, the (possible) health benefits and other aspects of the doubles experience. Among those interviewed are university students, doubles vendors and various experts.

World premiere.

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2008
Duration	95 minutes
Type	Documentary feature
Country	USA
Language	English
Director(s)	Ethan Higbee, Adam Bhala Lough
Rating	14 And Over
Contact	www.theupsettersmovie.com

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In the late 1950s a country boy came to Kingston with dreams of making it in the music industry. Over the next few decades, Lee “Scratch” Perry revolutionised Jamaican music, first helping to develop reggae, and then almost single-handedly inventing dub. Along the way he worked with numerous musicians, as well as becoming a recording artist in his own right.

In this candid account of his life, Perry recalls mentoring a young Bob Marley and setting up the Black Ark studio where he made his greatest work. He also details his eventual disillusionment with Jamaica and his flight to Europe, where he spent years in a fog of drink and drugs before going clean and returning triumphantly to music. Featuring some of Perry’s best-loved songs and interviews with a host of music stars, The Upsetter is as much a history of 30 years of Jamaican music as it is an extraordinary portrait of a true genius.

Trinidad and Tobago premiere.

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2010
Duration	60 minutes
Type	Documentary feature
Country	UK
Language	English
Director(s)	Octavia Hill Youth Film Collective
Rating	All Ages
Contact	www.hiddenherstories.org

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This film presents the lives of a number of noteworthy women from London’s recent history. The first woman, Octavia Hill, was a pioneer of social housing and founded the “open spaces” movement, the forerunner to environmentalism. The next, Amy Ashwood Garvey, was a pan-Africanist who started the United Negro Improvement Association with her then husband, Marcus Garvey.

The third story is that of Claudia Jones, the Trinidadian activist and “mother” of the Notting Hill Carnival. Jayaben Desai, the final woman profiled, is a factory worker who campaigned for the rights of Black and Asian workers. Featuring interviews with a number of famous Londoners, Hidden Herstories is a revealing tribute to four remarkable women, each with a dream to change the world they lived in.

Trinidad & Tobago premiere.

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	1996
Duration	100 minutes
Type	Dramatic feature
Country	Brazil
Language	Portuguese, with English subtitles
Director(s)	Daniela Thomas, Walter Salles
Rating	n/a
Contact	danielathomas@uol.com.br

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Terra Estrangeira is an engrossing, grainy black-and-white thriller made in the best film noir tradition. It is 1990, and Brazil’s newly elected president, Fernando Collor, has frozen all personal savings accounts. Young Brazilians, fearing a bleak future, leave the country in droves. Among them is Alex, who would rather eke out an existence as a waitress in Portugal than remain in São Paolo.

Paco, meanwhile, dreams of travelling abroad, and when his mother dies, he no longer has anything keeping him in Brazil. Accepting a delivery job from a shady businessman, Paco heads off to Lisbon. When things go wrong, Paco finds himself thrown together with Alex. The two end up on the run with a violin full of uncut diamonds, and an underworld honcho on their trail.

Trinidad & Tobago premiere

Awards: Golden Rosa Camuna, Bergamo Film Festival (1996); Grand Prix, Entrevues Film Festival (1996); Silver Daisy, Silver Daisy Awards, Brazil (1996); Best Screenplay, São Paolo Association of Art Critics Awards (1996)

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2009
Duration	12 minutes
Type	Animated short
Country	Kenya / UK
Language	English
Director(s)	Tinga Tinga Arts Cooperative Society
Rating	All Ages
Contact	claudia@tigertinga.co.ke

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Ever wonder why the elephant has a trunk, why the hippo has no hair, or why the lion roars? Tinga Tinga Tales will tell you. In this delightful children’s series, humans don’t exist and the animals live by their own rules. Here is a world of stripes and spots, of myth and friendship—a world where animals transform before your very eyes!

Trinidad & Tobago premiere.

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2009
Duration	73 minutes
Type	Dramatic feature
Country	Mexico
Language	Spanish, with English subtitles
Director(s)	Pedro González-Rubio
Rating	All Ages
Contact	intlsales@mk2.com

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Banco Chinchorro, on the Yucatán peninsula, is one of the richest coral reefs in Mexico. The native people, descendents of the Mayas, live on the water, in huts propped up on stilts—the reef is a nature reserve, and no building is allowed on the islands. One day a fisherman who lives in one of these huts receives some visitors: his son, Jorge, and his five-year-old grandson, Natan, who is on a visit from Rome, where he lives with his Italian mother.

Alamar quietly observes these three characters as they spend their days fishing, swimming and tending to their boat, their existence in harmonious rhythm with their surroundings. At the film’s poetic heart is the subtly delineated relationship between Jorge and Natan. Enveloped by sea, sand and sky, father and son grow ever closer, and a bond is formed that not even the fact of Natan’s looming departure can break.

Trinidad & Tobago premiere

Awards: Grand Jury Prize, Miami Film Festival 2010; Audience Award, Feature Film Competition Award, Morelia International Film Festival 2010; Tiger Award, Rotterdam International Film Festival; FIPRESCI Prize, Toulouse Latin American Film Festival 2010.

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2009
Duration	100 minutes
Type	Dramatic feature
Country	Dominican Republic / USA
Language	Spanish and English, with English subtitles
Director(s)	Josh Crook
Rating	18 And Over
Contact	www.lasogamovie.com |karina@korenblum.com

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La Soga is an edgy, action-packed thriller set in the Dominican Republic and New York City. In a poor neighborhood where the streets are run by deported drug dealers, a hard-working butcher struggles to raise his sensitive 10-year-old son, Luisito. When Luisito witnesses the murder of his father, his life changes forever. Twenty years later, Luisito becomes chief henchman for General Colon, head of the Dominican secret police. He is an emotionally hollow instrument of justice, perpetually kept in control by Colon’s promise to deliver his father’s killer.

Into Luisito’s world enters Jenny, a childhood sweetheart who left for New York shortly before his family tragedy. Unaware of his occupation, Jenny falls for Luisito and the love she shows him stirs the conscience that had lain dormant since his childhood. This, however, turns him against the ruthless General Colon and his death squad.

Trinidad + Tobago premiere.

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trinidad+tobago film festival 2010 screening

Year	2009
Duration	116 minutes
Type	Dramatic feature
Country	Colombia
Language	Spanish, with English subtitles
Director(s)	Ciro Guerra
Rating	All Ages
Contact	www.losviajesdelviento.net

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Ignacio Carrillo spent much of his life travelling through northern Colombia singing vallenato, a popular form of folk music. He accompanied himself on his legendary accordion, said to be cursed by the devil. Eventually Ignacio got married and gave up his itinerant ways, settling in a small town. When years later his wife suddenly dies, Ignacio decides to make a trek to the coast, to return his accordion to its previous owner, his former teacher and mentor.

Accompanying Ignacio is Fermin, a boy with romantic notions of becoming a juglar—a wandering musician—as Ignacio once was. Ignacio tries to discourage Fermin, as the life of a juglar brings only solitude and sadness. As they travel the awesome landscape—through savannah, desert and forest, and over mist-wreathed mountains—man and boy share a series of almost mystical adventures. These adventures not only bring them closer together, but also closer to their journey’s haunting, unexpected end.

Trinidad & Tobago premiere.

Awards: Best Colombian Film, Best Director, Bogota Film Festival 2009; Award of the City of Rome, Cannes Film Festival 2009; Best Colombian Film, Cartagena Film Festival 2010; Best Spanish Language Film, Santa Barbara Film Festival 2010

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