Sean Nero

Mar­ley, the movie that chron­i­cles the life of the late leg­endary Caribbean en­ter­tain Robert Nes­ta Mar­ley, from Acad­e­my-award-win­ning di­rec­tor Kevin Mac­don­ald, was the cin­e­mat­ic work cho­sen to ush­er in this year's sev­enth an­nu­al T&T Film Fes­ti­val on Sep­tem­ber 19. Queen's Hall in St Ann's, Port-of-Spain, was the venue for the fes­ti­val's red-car­pet pre­miere which brought to­geth­er movie pro­duc­ers and di­rec­tors along­side, spon­sors' rep­re­sen­ta­tives, diplo­mats and film buffs. Min­is­ter of Trade, In­dus­try and In­vest­ment Vas­ant Bharath told the cap­tive au­di­ence to ex­pect cru­cial in­cen­tives for the film sec­tor in the 2012-2013 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion from new fi­nance min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai. Mean­while, Bruce Padding­ton, founder and fes­ti­val di­rec­tor, un­der­scored the need for lo­cal tele­vi­sion sta­tions to sup­port the still emerg­ing lo­cal film in­dus­try by adding lo­cal con­tent to the prime­time line-up, but equal­ly as im­por­tant, en­sure that the peo­ple with the rights to the movies are paid. This year's TTFF runs through Oc­to­ber 2, show­cas­ing over 120 fea­ture-length and short films-nar­ra­tive, doc­u­men­tary and ex­per­i­men­tal-screen­ing at venues across T&T. Ed­u­ca­tion re­mains a core fea­ture of the fes­ti­val, so the or­gan­is­ers have again sched­uled sem­i­nars that in­clude How to Make A Kick Ass Short Film on your Cell­phone; The Art of Film Re­view; and Mar­ket­ing and Dis­trib­ut­ing in the Glob­al Mar­ket Place to strength­en and re­fine the re­view­ing ca­pac­i­ty of lo­cal jour­nal­ists and blog­gers.