The Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (TTFF) comes to an end tomorrow, concluding two weeks of intensive entertainment programming from local filmmakers as well as featuring remarkable new films from the region and beyond. Last night, several filmmakers were honoured at the event's awards ceremony, which offers cash prizes from sponsors but the even more compelling cachet of being recognised by the event's jury as well as its audience over the fortnight worth of showings. In just six short years, the organisers of the TTFF, supported by Flow and other sponsors, have crafted an event which brings a remarkable selection of dramatic works, comedies and documentaries that speak directly to the experience of the people of this country and to their wider cultural inspirations and influences.
In 2011, the project has also sprouted some healthy roots and connections, attracting strategic alliances with the European Film Festival and Zanzibar International Film Festival, which should tell you everything you need to know about the breadth and scope of the ambitions that drive this annual celebration of films that speak to the eclectic mix of cultures, personalities and beliefs that make Trinidad and Tobago such a unique melting pot of ideas and art. Considerable energies have also gone into making the screenings of these films accessible to the public, even with the constraints of time imposed by the national state of emergency. In addition to traditional film venues like MovieTowne, it seems that the production team of the TTFF scouted every space that might accommodate a screen and a projector to share this striking collection of cinematic works.
Films were run in community centres in Tobago, in conference halls and in public spaces at UWI and UTT, in a school hall, a hotel, a bar, a panyard and an art gallery. The films being shown at this year's film festival are no less eclectic. From Trinidad and Tobago alone come a horror film (3 Line), a revelatory and long overdue documentary ( '70: Remembering a Revolution) and a quirky animated short (Dirty Clothes). Screenings also included robust entries from regional neighbours Martinique, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Cuba, Curacao, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Haiti and Suriname. On September 24, the TTFF announced the winners of the Trinidad and Tobago Secondary Schools Short Film Festival, an outstanding effort at introducing young minds to the idea that film is not just something to be consumed, and has made workshops and coaching sessions for students and professionals a part of the festival experience from the start.
The 2011 Film Festival has begun to pull together a multitude of creative elements that began to reveal themselves in the local creative landscape over the last 10 years. The growing accessibility and sophistication of filmmaking tools to creators who would have never had the budget to create a film just a decade ago, an upsurge in curiosity about the nation's history and the many curious skeins that make up its often riotous fabric and a sustained commitment to teaching best practices in the craft at institutions such as UTT Digital Media Studies department and UWI's Film School have begun to produce animators and film makers keen to bring their unique visions to today's audiences.
Add to this mix the 2006 founding of the Trinidad and Tobago Film Company, with a mandate to lubricate the process of filmmaking in Trinidad and Tobago and you have a combustible mix stirring. The producers of the 2011 TTFF event have identified this year as the 100th anniversary of film in Trinidad and Tobago, beginning with the first showings at the London Electric Cinema, better known today as Globe Cinema. Of that century, the last decade looks to be the most interesting, as interest in film shifts from consumption to creation and the ongoing efforts to create a sustainable film industry in Trinidad and Tobago begin to find some hard won purchase as well as an increasingly prestigious festival to call its own.