The eighth T&T Film Fes­ti­val runs un­til Oc­to­ber 1. Guardian colum­nist, BC Pires, has been writ­ing about film from an in­formed lay per­spec­tive 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:

Silent Mu­sic (Melis­sa Gomez/ 2012/An­tigua-Bar­bu­da/USA/ Doc­u­men­tary/ 71 mins/ For all ages) 3pm Lit­tle Carib The­atre, Wood­brook.

In this In­ter­net age, hero­ism has been re­placed by celebri­ty and hon­esty by dis­clo­sure. Where, 100 years ago, you had in­tel­li­gent dis­cus­sion on the BBC World Ser­vice, you now have Oprah wheel­ing a bar­row­ful of quiv­er­ing fat on­to set to make a weight loss point.

The dis­cern­ing view­er, then, should ex­pe­ri­ence dis­com­fort with Melis­sa Gomez' deeply per­son­al doc­u­men­tary, Silent Mu­sic. Ear­ly in her film, Gomez, a hear­ing child born to deaf par­ents (her moth­er is from Mis­souri, her fa­ther from An­tigua, where the film's ac­tion is set), de­clares her aim is to un­cov­er what­ev­er se­crets lie be­hind the si­lence in her fam­i­ly.

Con­se­quent­ly, most of the run­time is tak­en up with pure­ly per­son­al in­ter­ests: where does her fa­ther go when he dis­ap­pears from home? Why did he go to Eng­land to vis­it an old aunt in­stead of com­ing to her grad­u­a­tion in Cana­da? These mat­ters, the view­er mut­ters to him­self, are not uni­ver­sal, not even just small-is­land, but ac­tu­al­ly small fam­i­ly con­cerns. It does not help set­tle the dis­qui­et that the film­mak­er her­self and the en­tire lead­ing cast - her par­ents, sis­ter, broth­er and boyfriend - are all ex­ceed­ing­ly good-look­ing; Gomez' el­der sis­ter would not look out of place on George Clooney's arm on a Hol­ly­wood red car­pet.

It is a mea­sure of the strength of the film, and of Gomez' abil­i­ty, that, as the film pro­gress­es, the wor­ry about theme and su­per­fi­cial­i­ty fades away al­most com­plete­ly, al­low­ing a sto­ry to come up that few of us are fa­mil­iar with: the near to­tal iso­la­tion of the deaf per­son. Gomez be­gins the film chas­ing what she thinks is her sto­ry and, in its course, is her­self changed by her film. What emerges - down to the up­dates in sub­ti­tles at the very end–is a lov­ing doc­u­men­tary about in­di­vid­ual strength and fam­i­ly com­mit­ment, far bet­ter, on the screen, than the out­line might have looked to a film school pro­fes­sor. This is an en­gag­ing, re­ward­ing and touch­ing film. And, at least for the men, even if you don't like the doc­u­men­tary, you can al­ways ogle the daugh­ters.

Best of the rest:

Beasts of the South­ern Wild, 5.30 pm Lit­tle Carib The­atre, di­rec­tor present for Q+A af­ter screen­ing

�2The Dream of Lu, 8pm Movi­eTowne To­ba­go

�2I Am a Di­rec­tor, 8 pm LC, di­rec­tor present for Q+A af­ter screen­ing

�2Bar­ba­do'ed: Scot­land's Sug­ar Slaves, 3.30 pm Movi­eTowne Port-of-Spain.

Films start prompt­ly at ad­ver­tised times.

�2Starred films have been or will be picked as dai­ly se­lec­tions

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

FRI­DAY 27 SEP­TEM­BER

9 am to 4.30pm

Hy­att Re­gency, Trinidad

UN­ESCO Con­fer­ence

11 am

Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain

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

11 am to 4 pm

Medul­la Art Gallery, Wood­brook

New Me­dia Reg­u­lar Pro­gramme

1.15pm

Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain

Earth, Wa­ter, Woman: Sarah Fein­bloom, Alexan­dra Swati Guild, 2013, TT, USA / 22 mins / GA

The Blue and the Gold: Alex de Ver­teuil, 2013, TT / 47 mins / GA

Q+A ses­sion, di­rec­tor present

3 pm

Lit­tle Carib The­atre, Wood­brook

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

3.00pm

Movi­eTowne, To­ba­go

Pub­lic Spaces: The Ar­chi­tec­ture of Col­in Laird: Christo­pher Laird, 2012, TT / 16 mins / GA

No Bois Man No Fraid: Christo­pher Laird, 2013, TT / 72 mins / GA

3.30pm

Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain

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

5.30pm

Lit­tle Carib The­atre, Wood­brook

TBA

5.30pm

Movi­eTowne, To­ba­go

Three Cards: Michael James, 2011, Guyana / 17 mins / PG

Kingston Par­adise: Mary Wells, 2013, Ja­maica / 82 mins / 16+

6.00pm

Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain

Vi­o­le­ta Went to Heav­en: An­dr�s Wood, 2011, Chile / 110? / 16+

Q+A ses­sion, di­rec­tor present

6.00pm

Medul­la Art Gallery, Wood­brook

Clos­ing New Me­dia per­for­mance with Rodell Warn­er

8.00pm

Lit­tle Carib The­atre, Wood­brook

I Am a Di­rec­tor: Javier Col�n, 2012, Colom­bia / 87 mins / PG13

Q+A ses­sion, di­rec­tor present