BC Pires

The eighth T&T Film Fes­ti­val runs un­til Oc­to­ber 1. Guardian colum­nist BC Pires has been writ­ing about film since March 1988. He served on the first T&T Film Fes­ti­val ju­ry in 2009 and wrote the ju­ry's re­port. BC will pick a Film of the Day for every day of the fes­ti­val. To­day's choice is:

Neigh­bour­ing Sounds (Kle­ber Men­don­ca Fil­ho/ 2012/ Brazil/ Crime-Dra­ma-Art House / 131 mins/ Por­tuguese Eng­lish and Man­darin with Eng­lish sub­ti­tles/ For ages 16 and over) 8pm Lit­tle Carib The­atre, Wood­brook.

The TTFF ed­i­to­r­i­al di­rec­tor, Jonathan Ali, in a con­ver­sa­tion about Neigh­bour­ing Sounds, caught one as­pect of the movie's great ap­peal in a nut­shell: "The sound de­sign," he said, "is it­self a char­ac­ter in the film."

It is. Wind whistling down an emp­ty city street, the thump-thump of a foot­ball against a wall, the rustling of trees as the most bizarre of mod­ern ur­ban Brazil­ian crea­tures–night urchins– move through them...al­most every scene is en­riched and de­fined by the au­dio.

This is the biggest use of sound in film since Fritz Laing chose mu­sic for each char­ac­ter in Me­trop­o­lis–and so much more im­por­tant than, say, each bul­let hole hav­ing its own ping in the open­ing scene of The Propo­si­tion (as gen­uine­ly im­pres­sive as such sound ad­mit­ted­ly is).

The sound is so im­por­tant to the film, it en­ters the very ti­tle. But there is far more to it.

An ex­cel­lent, if very slow, script, strong per­for­mances and com­plete­ly non-judge­men­tal as­sess­ment of the so­cial class of its char­ac­ters make Neigh­bour­ing Sounds an un­de­ni­ably ac­cu­rate por­trait of mod­ern city life–and the cin­e­matog­ra­phy is stun­ning.

Art films are rarely this ap­proach­able.

Guardian Me­dia Ltd is the of­fi­cial me­dia part­ner of the T&T Film Fes­ti­val.

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TO­DAY'S TTFF FILM SCHED­ULE

11 am

Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain

The Kid Who Lies: Mar­it� Ug�s, 2011, Venezuela/100 mins/PG

11 am - 4 pm

Medul­la Art Gallery, Wood­brook

New Me­dia Reg­u­lar Pro­gramme

1.15pm

Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain

Sec­ondary Schools' Short Film Fes­ti­val Se­lec­tion: 2013, TT/5 mins/ GA

The Moon in the Gar­den: Yemel� Cruz, Ada­noe Li­ma, 2012, Cu­ba/19 mins/GA

Silent Mu­sic: Melis­sa Gomez, 2012, An­tigua/70 mins/GA

3 pm

Lit­tle Carib The­atre, Wood­brook

Bar­ba­do'ed: Scot­land's Sug­ar Slaves: Ly­dia Con­way, Paul Arnott and Shane Bren­nan, 2009, Unit­ed King­dom/48 mins/GA

The Wind that Blows: Thomas We­st­on, 2013, USA, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines/60 mins/GA

Q&A ses­sion, di­rec­tor present

3.30 pm

Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain

Handsworth Songs: John Akom­frah, 1986, Unit­ed King­dom/60 mins/PG

The Last An­gel of His­to­ry: John Akom­frah, 1995, Unit­ed King­dom/45 mins/PG

5.30 pm

Lit­tle Carib The­atre, Wood­brook

Se�ori­tas: Lina Ro­dr�guez, 2013, Colom­bia/87 mins/18+

6 pm

Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain

Drink: Juli­ette Mc­Caw­ley, 2013, TT, Unit­ed King­dom/8 mins/PG

Yema: Di­rec­tor: Djami­la Sahraoui, 2012, Al­ge­ria / 90 mins / PG

Q&A ses­sion, di­rec­tor present

6 pm

Medul­la Art Gallery, Wood­brook

Walk­ing Draw­ings Across the Es­tu­ar­ies: Ever­ton Wright, 2012, Unit­ed King­dom/42 mins/PG

8 pm

Lit­tle Carib The­atre, Wood­brook

Neigh­bour­ing Sounds: Kle­ber Men­don�a Fil­ho, 2012, Brazil/131 mins/16+

8.30pm

Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain

NO: Pablo Lar­ra�n, 2012, Chile/118 mins/PG13

best of the rest

Yema, 6 pm, Movi­eTowne POS;

Bar­ba­do'ed: Scot­land's Sug­ar Slaves, 2 pm, Lit­tle Carib The­atre, Wood­brook. Films start prompt­ly at ad­ver­tised times.