BC has been picking a festival Film of the Day for the Guardian Features section since the first day. The last nine days of the festival include a wide range of choice, from art-house through documentary to kung fu and several short films worth going to see for themselves alone.
If you've never been to a filmfestival, today is a good time to start, with one of the best things about them–the live interchange between filmmaker and audience in a question and answer session–taking place after one of the festival's–and cinema's–best documentaries: director Stevan Riley, who made the excellent Fire in Babylon, about the great West Indies cricket teams of the 70s and 80s, will be at MovieTowne to face any bouncers the audience may pelt at him after the 6 pm screening of his exceedingly good James Bond documentary, Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of 007.
You can head down to Invaders Bay right after lunch, though, to catch The Way He Looks, one of the films shortlisted for the inaugural Youth Jury Prize, a drama dealing with the great human rights question of the day: what happens to people who happen to be different?
Stay on, after the Bond documentary, for what will be for most people by far the best film of the festival: the wonderful, and wonderfully-made, Indian film The Lunchbox, which adds real and figurative spice to the usually despairingly bland romantic comedy genre, and raises Lunchbox alongside–perhaps even above–films as strong as Sideways, Annie Hall and The Seven Year Itch.
Screening times are: 3.30 pm today–MovieTowne PoS, 8 pm September 26–MovieTowne Tobago, 8 pm September 29–Little Carib, 8 pm September 30–MovieTowne Tobago.
Today also offers what may be the best all-round short comic film you will ever see–and will almost certainly deliver the biggest guffaw you might ever get from a five-minute production. Beautifully made, and starring the filmmaker Kimberly Hule, directing herself in half a dozen roles with great lines, also written by her, it is also technically perfect and renders a real and memorable twist in the denouement: if you have only five minutes to spare today, see The Intervention (8 pm, Little Carib). There are three more screenings (6 pm September 26–MovieTowne PoS; 3 pm September 28–MovieTowne Tobago) of what is probably the second-best short film of the entire programme this year.
Strongest short film: ABCs
The strongest short film of this year's festival, though–and probably the most powerful film of all, including full-length features and documentaries–is the film picked last Wednesday, the festival's first public day, the Cuban documentary ABCs.
If you see only one festival film, it must be this one. It runs for barely 12 minutes but they are 12 shattering minutes, with a knockout punch delivered in a short sentence that appears after the screen goes blank. Avoid learning anything else about it before you go in, though, for the impact will be far greater. It screens next Saturday at 6.30 pm at the Little Carib.
Best Film of Festival: a tie
For the cinephile, there are two runaway contenders for the Best Film of the Festival: the Palestinian drama Omar (screening for the last time next Sunday at 8.30 pm at MovieTowne PoS) and Of Good Report, an exceptional South African film-noir psychological thriller shot in black and white that lifts itself even higher above the pack with superb direction of an excellent, non-linear script that adds the distinction of giving its male lead not one line in its entire runtime.
By pure good luck, both the usual double festival Of Good Report screenings are still to come, the first on Tuesday at MovieTowne PoS at 8.30 pm and the second at the same time and place on September 29.
It is the only festival film picked twice as a Film of the Day and, had it screened a third time, it would have been picked again.
Films of the day
The remaining Films of the Day to be named in the next few days (which, naturally, constitute the best remaining options) are Mother of George (8 pm tomorrow, Little Carib), Sensei Redemption (6 pm September 24 UWI and again 6 pm September 27 MovieTowne PoS), Pelo Malo (4 pm September 24 UWI, 8 pm September 25 Little Carib and 3 pm September 27 MovieTowne Tobago), Giraffes (8.30 pm September 26 MovieTowne PoS (Q&A)) and American Promise (3.30 pm September 27 Little Carib).
Other Films of the Day chosen before today that will screen again are Dubois, the most outstanding local short film (8.30 pm September 27 Little Carib) and Noka, Keeper of Worlds, the next most praiseworthy local short (3.30 pm September 29 MovieTowne PoS).
One half (without Amanda Sans) of last year's documentary prize co-winner, Miquel Galofre's latest film, Art Connect, will sell out quickly for its remaining Port-of-Spain screening (September 30, MovieTowne PoS (Q&A)) but tickets may be available for its two Tobago times (8 pm September 24, 5.30 pm September 27, MovieTowne Tobago).
The other festival film likely to sell out quickly is a sequel in the vein of Terminator 2: A Story about Wendy 2 (3.30 pm September 24 (Q&A) Little Carib) is far better than the first one.
Most striking art film
The most striking art film of the festival is easily Manakamana (1.30 pm September 24 Little Carib), a visually beautiful film set entirely in a cable car carrying passengers to a temple high in the Nepalese Himalayas, in which the filmmakers set up a camera in one seat and filmed whoever sat opposite them, including, spectacularly, a small herd of goats, the purpose of whose journey was not sightseeing or pilgrimage. Classed as a documentary, it is a spellbinding portrait of individual and group relationships amongst fellow travellers in the journey of life, not that of a cable car. It is very good–but only for those who can enjoy long intervals of film with no dialogue whatever.
Even more visually striking (but not nearly as powerful) is The Mountain, a documentary about mountaineers (and surfers) from the Dominican Republic who set out to climb the highest mountain in the world (and the DR).
Those seeking purely visual delight would also enjoy Hotel Nueva Isla, a lovely film in which almost nothing happens.
Perhaps the single most visually striking moment in the entire festival, though, comes in the opening scene of Giraffes; any heterosexual man will know it at once.
Other good films
Of the other films that hovered around selection, Behaviour perhaps came closest with no cigar. A Youth Jury shortlisted and very strong Cuban film, it features Cuban actress Yuliet Cruz as the mother of the child lead, Armando Valdes Freire, and there are four chances still to see it. (5.30 pm September 24 Little Carib; 5.30 pm September 26 and September 28 8 pm MovieTowne Tobago; and 8.15 pm September 30 Little Carib.)
On Behaviour's heels was probably Cows Wearing Glasses, a very funny, quietly philosophical and beautifully shot deadpan comic drama about an irascible painter who begins to go blind. There are still five chances to see it (tomorrow at 8.30 pm MovieTowne POS, noon September 24 UWI, 3.30 pm September 26 MovieTowne PoS (Q&A) and September 29 MovieTowne Tobago.)
Today's film pick
At 12.30 noon today, at the Little Carib, you can catch The Price of Memory, today's festival film pick of the day, a documentary dealing with what is likely to become–at last–a serious New World question for the Old one to answer: reparations for slavery.
Stay on at the Little Carib for a very strong documentary, Mala Mala, screening at 5.30 pm, which very nearly became today's film festival pick, losing to Memory only because another exceptional film, probably the strongest Caribbean documentary of the festival, also deals with LGBT issues (The Abominable Crime, showing again next Sunday, September 28 at 3.30 pm at the Little Carib, was a Film of the Day last week.)
Amongst the less-impressive-than-usual T&T documentaries, the standouts include the short Glass Bottom Boat (8.30 pm tomorrow, MovieTowne PoS (Q&A), 3.30 pm September 26 MovieTowne POS, 8 pm September 27 MovieTowne Tobago and 8 pm September 29 (Q&A) MovieTowne Tobago) and the medium-length Earl Lovelace documentary that, though made from the perspective of his biggest fan in academia, director Prof Funso Aiyejina, is most worthwhile (A Writer in His Place, 10.30 am September 25 MovieTowne POS (Q&A), 1 pm September 28 MovieTowne Tobago (Q&A), 5.30 pm September 30 MovieTowne Tobago).
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Notable short films
Notable short films include Ryan Khan's office cubicle-set comedy Cubes (3.30 pm September 24 Little Carib, 6.30 pm September 27 UWI (Q&A)) and Darisha Beresford's The Cutlass (10.30 am September 24 MovieTowne PoS (Q&A)), which creates wonderful atmosphere (even though it has an unfinished feel; perhaps because the story is clearly meant to continue).
The Bajan filmmaker Shakirah Bourne, who won the workshop pitch award last year and wrote the screenplay of one of last year's festival highlights, Payday, returns as director of Two Smart, an ambitious psychological thriller that is well worth seeing (5.30 pm September 25 Little Carib (Q&A)). The other Bajan film in the festival, the movie version of the popular-at-home television sitcom Keeping Up with the Joneses (1 pm September 26 MovieTowne PoS (Q&A)), has its moments, but not everyone will agree they add up to full feature length.