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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Old, new, borrowed and Blue at Film Festival

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20120908

Two weeks, 175 films, over a dozen venues and $170,000 in prizes-those are some of the stats of the Trinidad + To­ba­go Film Fes­ti­val, which starts Sep­tem­ber 19. In its sev­enth year, the fes­ti­val will open with a screen­ing of the hit bio-doc­u­men­tary Mar­ley, which will be pre­sent­ed by its di­rec­tor Kevin Mac­don­ald. A crit­i­cal hit, the film about reg­gae leg­end Bob Mar­ley played in T&T ear­li­er this year but suf­fered from a lack of pub­lic­i­ty, said Bruce Padding­ton at a Sep­tem­ber 4 press con­fer­ence at the Carl­ton Sa­van­nah, St Ann's, launch­ing the fes­ti­val. Padding­ton, fes­ti­val di­rec­tor and founder, high­light­ed some of the oth­er films the fes­ti­val will screen, in­clud­ing the hit UK movie Shame-"It's sup­posed to be very sexy," he said, some­what un­der­stat­ed­ly, about the frank por­trait of sex ad­dic­tion. An­oth­er high­light he men­tioned was Juan of the Dead, a crit­i­cal­ly praised zom­bie flick from Cu­ba.

Of course, T&T and Caribbean Di­as­po­ra films will fea­ture heav­i­ly in the pro­gramme, start­ing with the pre­miere of the on­ly fea­ture-length nar­ra­tive T&T-made film in this year's fes­ti­val, Lit­tle Boy Blue, di­rect­ed by Nicholas At­tin. Oth­er lo­cal fea­tures gar­ner­ing at­ten­tion at the launch were Richard Fung's Dal Puri Di­as­po­ra, a doc­u­men­tary on the roots of roti; Hosay Ce­dros, a doc­u­men­tary about the Mus­lim fes­ti­val as it is cel­e­brat­ed in Ce­dros, di­rect­ed by Dion Sam­soon­dar; and Ho­race Ov&ea­cute;'s clas­sic Pres­sure, the first black in­de­pen­dent fea­ture made in the UK. The fes­ti­val this year ho­n­ours Ov&ea­cute;, a Trinida­di­an who mi­grat­ed to the UK in 1960 and has since made over 20 films. Padding­ton al­so high­light­ed the New Me­dia part of the fes­ti­val, which, the fes­ti­val guide says, is "a col­lec­tion of artists' works that ex­plore a range of themes and is­sues, while push­ing and blur­ring the bound­aries be­tween film and art."

These films will be shown most­ly at the Medul­la Art Gallery, Wood­brook, dai­ly from Sep­tem­ber 22-29. The New Me­dia ex­hi­bi­tion will be pre­sent­ed with ARC Mag­a­zine, and will in­clude films by artists from T&T, Ja­maica, Mar­tinique, Fin­land, Haiti, Puer­to Ri­co, Bar­ba­dos and Brazil, among oth­er coun­tries. Would-be film­mak­ers and cel­lu­loid su­per­stars will al­so have the chance to par­tic­i­pate in var­i­ous free and open work­shops on act­ing, fund­ing, the art of the film re­view, guer­ril­la film­mak­ing, and "How to make a kick-ass short film on your cell­phone," the lat­ter led by Baf­ta award-win­ning UK film­mak­er John Maclean, fa­mous for his own cell­phone movie Man on a Mo­tor­cy­cle. Though it is the Trinidad + To­ba­go Film Fes­ti­val, Padding­ton said that was no rea­son to re­strict the films shown to on­ly lo­cal con­tent, and the fes­ti­val will show films from some 28 coun­tries. The fes­ti­val en­joys re­la­tion­ships with re­gion­al as well as in­ter­na­tion­al fes­ti­vals, and, in fact, has been in­vit­ed to sub­mit a se­lec­tion of films to the Ha­vana Film Fes­ti­val in De­cem­ber, Padding­ton said. (LAA) For more in­for­ma­tion on the Trinidad + To­ba­go Film Fes­ti­val, in­clud­ing sched­ules, go to ttfilm­fes­ti­val.com

T&T films in the fes­ti­val

Eight fea­tures and 38 shorts from Trinidad and To­ba­go film­mak­ers will be screened in the fes­ti­val.

Some high­lights are:

LIT­TLE BOY BLUE, Di­rec­tor: Nicholas At­tin

2012, Trinidad&thin­sp;+&thin­sp;To­ba­go Eng­lish

Nar­ra­tive fea­ture/87 min­utes

T+T PRE­MIERE

Bill is a trou­bled art teacher with a trag­ic past. Af­ter he con­fis­cates a mys­te­ri­ous pen­dant from an or­phaned stu­dent, Georgie-Boy, vi­sions of a spec­tre in white plague Bill's fit­ful sleep, even­tu­al­ly mak­ing the ter­ri­fy­ing tran­si­tion from the world of dreams in­to re­al­i­ty. When he re­alis­es the im­por­tance of the pen­dant Bill must re­turn it to its right­ful rest­ing place.

Sep­tem­ber 20, 6 pm, Movi­eTowne POS, Q&A

Sep­tem­ber 22, 7 pm, UWI, Stu­dents' Ac­tiv­i­ty Cen­tre, Q&A

Sep­tem­ber 28, 1 pm, Movi­eTowne POS

PRES­SURE, Di­rec­tor: Ho­race Ov&ea­cute;

1975, UK/Trinidad&thin­sp;+&thin­sp;To­ba­go Eng­lish

Nar­ra­tive fea­ture/110 min­utes

Tony, the Lon­don-born son of Trinida­di­an mi­grants, can't find a suit­able job, in spite of his im­pres­sive O-Lev­el qual­i­fi­ca­tions. Ha­rassed by his par­ents for his sup­posed idle­ness, and by his old­er broth­er for deny­ing his black iden­ti­ty, Tony is pushed to the mar­gins of an in­creas­ing­ly alien­at­ing so­ci­ety. The first British fea­ture by a black film­mak­er, Pres­sure is the clas­sic, pas­sion­ate sto­ry of a black man's po­lit­i­cal awak­en­ing and his strug­gle for a sense of be­ing and place.

Sep­tem­ber 24, 1.30 pm, UWI, Cen­tre for Lan­guage Learn­ing, Q&A

Sep­tem­ber 29, 3 pm, Lit­tle Carib The­atre, Q&A

FISH, Di­rec­tor: Shaun Es­cayg

2012, Trinidad&thin­sp;+To­ba­go/Cana­da/USA Eng­lish

Nar­ra­tive short/15 min­utes

Two home­less cousins try to sur­vive the streets of Port-of-Spain as pet­ty thieves. But times are get­ting hard­er and the pick­ings, slim. Will for­tune favour the brave? Or will their des­per­ate ac­tions lead to their demise?

Sep­tem­ber 24, 8.30 pm, Movi­eTowne POS

Sep­tem­ber 26, 8 pm, Movi­eTowne To­ba­go

Sep­tem­ber 28, 8.45 pm, Movi­eTowne POS, Q&A

Sep­tem­ber 30, 8 pm, Movi­eTowne To­ba­go

DOU­BLES WITH SLIGHT PEP­PER, Di­rec­tor: Ian Harnar­ine

2012, Cana­da/USA/Trinidad&thin­sp;+&thin­sp;To­ba­go Eng­lish

Nar­ra­tive short/6 min­utes

T+T PRE­MIERE

Dhani strug­gles to sup­port him­self and his moth­er by sell­ing dou­bles at the mar­ket. When his es­tranged fa­ther re­turns from Cana­da un­ex­pect­ed­ly, Dhani must de­cide if he will help save his fa­ther's life de­spite their strained re­la­tion­ship.

In as­so­ci­a­tion with the High Com­mis­sion of Cana­da and RBC Roy­al Bank

Sep­tem­ber 20, 8 pm, Lit­tle Carib The­atre

Sep­tem­ber 23, 7 pm, Ch­agua­nas

Sep­tem­ber 28, 2.30 pm, UWI, In­sti­tute of Crit­i­cal Think­ing

Sep­tem­ber 29 , 8 pm, Lit­tle Carib The­atre, Q&A

BUCK: The Man Spir­it, Di­rec­tor: Steven Tay­lor

2012, Trinidad&thin­sp;+To­ba­go Eng­lish

Nar­ra­tive short/35 min­utes

WORLD?PRE­MIERE

When Au­di picks up some Guyanese na­tion­als in his taxi, he un­know­ing­ly picks up an­oth­er, mys­te­ri­ous pas­sen­ger. And when he learns that this mys­te­ri­ous crea­ture could bring him good luck, he is over­joyed. Au­di soon re­alis­es, how­ev­er, how quick­ly good for­tune can turn bad.

Sep­tem­ber 22, 5 pm, UWI, Stu­dents' Ac­tiv­i­ty Cen­tre

Sep­tem­ber 24, 6.30 pm, Movi­eTowne POS, Q&A

Sep­tem­ber 30, 1 pm, Movi­eTowne POS


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