david rudder joins us for a ttff talk!

“It is a living vibration, rooted deep within my Caribbean belly…” To many, truer words have never been spoken than these describing calypso music, from the lyrics man himself, David Michael Rudder. Through a lifetime in music, David Rudder has written and performed so many songs that have become de facto anthems to Trinidad, Carnival, pan, cricket and more.  

With great pleasure, we invite you to join us for our next ttff talk – an intimate and wide-ranging conversation with the icon, David Rudder, on music, Carnival, Trinidad and writing the perfect song. Rudder’s talk takes place on the same day as the #watchamovieonus screening of Banyan’s documentary, Soca in She Samba.

When: 3pm AST, 26 February 2022

Where: Facebook + YouTube Live @ ttfilmfestival


David Rudder has created over 20 albums and performed around the world. In 1992, he was awarded the Humming Bird Medal, Silver (for culture) in recognition of his contribution to Calypso music. In 1996 he was appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations Development Programme. He was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by UWI, St Augustine in 2015. Rudder has also appeared onscreen in ‘Sugar Cane Arrows’ and, most recently, the ttff alum feature film, ‘Brown Girl Begins’.

#WatchAMovieOnUs carnival edition is brought to you by the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC).

#nationalgascompany #attheforefrontofenergy #unstoppableenergy

#watchamovieonus carnival edition is back!

We’re back! FILMCO is delighted to present the second carnival edition of our popular online streaming series, #WatchAMovieOnUs! This year’s films take us back in times with the nostalgic Calypso at Dirty Jim’s, we look back at the emergence of the boy who would become the soca powerhouse, Machel Montano in Banyan’s Too Young to Soca; we chart the explosive rise of David Rudder with another Banyan production, Soca in She Samba; celebrate enduring carnival traditions with a series of shorts: ‘This is home: Carnival’ and we get a fly-on-the-wall view of the making of a Carnival band in The Insatiable Season. Finally, we remember Vanna Girod with the screening of Moko Jumbie.

From 23 – 27 February 2022, we will stream seven films for FREE, via https://ttfilmfestival.com. Films will be available to viewers WORLDWIDE for 24 hours each (midnight to midnight). 

#WatchAMovieOnUs carnival edition is brought to you by the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC).

#nationalgascompany #attheforefrontofenergy #unstoppableenergy

full schedule

ttff partners with UNHCR on human rights edition of WAMOU

The trinidad+tobago film festival is delighted to present the human rights edition of our popular #WatchAMovieOnUs online streaming series! In celebration of World Refugee Day, we are partnering with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency to for two days of online film screenings. The series explores the lived experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in Trinidad and Tobago and Central America.

Starting 19 june, films will be available to viewers for 24 hours each (midnight to midnight) at ttfilmfestival.com/watchamovieonus

sat 19 june:Lifted‘ directed by Miquel Galofre + ‘With Love from Central America’, directed by Diana Diaz
sun 20 june: ‘Casa en Tierra Ajena (House in Foreign Land)’, directed by Ivannia Villalobos Vindas

#ttff21 #wamouhumanrightsedition
#UNHCR #WithRefugees

About the Films

Lifted (Sat 19 June)

Set against frank conversation about diversity in Trinidad and Tobago, ‘Lifted‘ follows a day in the lives of a refugee family as they journey to a Moko Jumbie (stilt-walking) class.

Trinidad & Tobago is home to over 7,000 asylum-seekers and refugees—including parents who have fled to protect themselves and their children. Set against frank conversation about diversity, Lifted follows the highs and lows experienced by a refugee family as they journey through Port-of-Spain, and encounter a group of Moko Jumbies (stiltwalkers). Lifted is written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Miquel Galofré, produced by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and T&T Rocks, and features interviews with Sticks in de Yard / #1000Mokos.

With Love from Central America (Sat 19 June)

If you were forced to flee or into hiding – away from your family, left alone with your thoughts and fears – who would you reach out to? Directed by Diana Diaz, ‘With Love from Central America’ is a series of letters written by eight refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people who are rebuilding their lives in the region, where they must continue to live in the shadows to stay alive.

Living in the midst of chronic violence and insecurity, tens of thousands of people from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have been forced to flee. Most are escaping the oppressive influence of organized crime. Others flee social and political instability in countries like Nicaragua. The number of refugees and asylum-seekers from the region has significantly increased, reaching over 409,000.

‘Casa en Tierra Ajena (House in Foreign Land)’ (Sun 20 June)

‘Casa en Tierra Ajena’ reveals the circumstances that expel and force people to leave Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras; and the increasingly violent and repressive control mechanisms that are imposed to try to retain the migrants, setting its sights at the same time, on the solidarity that is woven in a path without borders. 

Directed by Ivannia Villalobos Vindas, the film is based on the book ‘No more walls, forced migration in Central America’, written by researcher and academic Carlos Sandoval García, ‘Casa en Tierra Ajena’ is built on three questions: “Why do Central Americans continue to go to the United States if it is increasingly dangerous to cross the border? Why has immigration policy become so much tougher with more and more obstacles to migrate?; And why, along the migratory route, are the most humble people the most supportive, both in Mexico and in the United States?”

#WatchAMovieOnUs Carnival Edition

#WatchAMovieOnUs goes global! ttff is delighted to present the carnival edition of our popular online streaming series! From 07 feb – 14 feb 2021, ttff will stream ten trinidad+tobago film festival favourites for FREE, via https://ttfilmfestival.com. Films will be available to viewers around the world for 24 hours each (midnight to midnight). #WatchAMovieOnUs carnival edition is brought to you with the support of the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC).

Full Schedule

  • 07.02.2021, No Bois Man No Fraid, directed by Christopher Laird
  • 08.02.2021, Mystic Fighters, directed by Sophie Meyer
  • 09.02.2021, Jab! The Blue Devils of Paramin, directed by Alex DeVerteuil
  • 10.02.2021, Play the Devil, directed by Maria Govan + panel discussion, “Documenting Carnival”, moderated by Ray Funk
  • 11.02.2021, Bazodee, directed by Todd Kessler
  • 12.02.2021, After Mas, directed by Karen Martinez, Dying Swan and Paradise Lost, directed by Christopher Laird
  • 13.02.2021, Soca Power, directed by Claude Santiago
  • 14.02.21, Pan! Our Music Odyssey, directed by Jérôme Guiot

#WatchAMovieOnUs
#ttff21#wamoucarnivaledition
#WazDeSceneShowUsYourScreen
#ngc#attheforefrontofenergy#nationalgascompany

Featured image © Maria Nunes

#WatchAMovieOnUs carnival edition is brought to you with the support of the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC)

trinidad+tobago film festival Presents:

georgia popplewell and filmmaker shola lynch in conversation

.
Watch the powerful documentary, “Free Angela and All Political Prisoners”, on ttfilmfestival.com this weekend, and join us on Facebook Live for a conversation between Georgia Popplewell and Shola Lynch, writer + director of “Free Angela and All Political Prisoners”, followed by a q+a session. Sunday 12 July, at 5:00pm

Free Angela and All Political Prisoners”, streaming this weekend at ttfilmfestival.com/watchamovieonus, is a tribute to Angela Davis, radical political activist and leader who spent five decades campaigning for racial justice and respect for black lives in the US and African diaspora. Her work around issues of gender, race, class and prisons has influenced social movements for generations. Directed by Shola Lynch, the acclaimed documentary chronicles the life of Angela Davis as a young college professor and explores how social activism implicated her in a botched kidnapping attempt that ended with a shootout, four dead, and her name on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list.

Free Angela and All Political Prisoners” will stream to viewers in the Caribbean at ttfilmfestival.com/watchamovieonus, on Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 July, from midnight on Friday night to 11:59pm on Sunday.

Shola Lynch, documentary filmmaker

Shola Lynch is an award-winning filmmaker best known for the feature documentary, “FREE ANGELA & All Political Prisoners” (streaming this weekend at ttfilmfestival.com) and the Peabody Award winning documentary “CHISOLM ’72: Unbought & Unbossed”. Her independent film body of work and her other collaborative projects feed her passion to bring history alive with captivating stories of people, places and events. Since 2013 she has also served as the Curator of the Moving Image & Recorded Sound division of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In 2016, Shola became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Georgia Popplewell, writer and media producer

Georgia Popplewell is a Trinidadian writer and media producer and managing director of the international citizen media project Global Voices. She has worked in independent media since 1989 and has written extensively on culture, music, film, and sport. She started her career at the pioneering Trinidad and Tobago television production company Banyan, and is a founding member of Earth Television. She has worked on productions such as the Nickelodeon pre-school series Gullah Gullah Island and helmed the production team for the feature documentary 25 Years of West Indies Cricket. In 2005, Georgia started Caribbean Free Radio, the Caribbean’s first podcast.

The #WatchAMovieOnUs online streaming series is presented in partnership with The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago.

#WatchAMovieOnUs Redux

eight films over eight weekends

Let’s face it! If you’re a cinema-lover, you’ve probably gone into a decline with the closure of all the cinemas! And with no end in sight, we’re here to make sure you get your weekly movie fix by streaming the best Caribbean films free of charge on ttfilmfestival.com!

Back by popular demand, ttff is delighted to present the #WatchAMovieOnUs online streaming series in partnership with NGC (The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago).

As part of our fifteenth anniversary celebrations, from 24 May – 12 July 2020, ttff will stream eight trinidad+tobago film festival favourites – one per week on weekends – for free via the ttff website. Films will be available for 48 hours each (midnight Fridays to midnight Sundays).

Our streaming schedule will be posted to the ttff Facebook page over the next few days, so subscribe to our Facebook page facebook/ttfilmfestival .

#WatchAMovieOnUS: Online Screening Series

Looking for a way to beat the cabin fever of ‘self-isolation’?

ttff is delighted to present the #WatchAMovieOnUs: online screening series, in partnership with NGC (The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago).

As part of our fifteenth anniversary celebrations, from 28 March to 10 April, ttff will stream fourteen trinidad+tobago film festival favourites—one per day—for free via the ttff website. Films will be available for 24 hours each.

Our screening schedule will be posted to the ttff Facebook page over the next few days, so check out and follow our event page at: https://www.facebook.com/events/220642585807814/