The sixth T&T Film Fes­ti­val runs un­til Oc­to­ber 4. T&T Guardian colum­nist, BC Pires, has been writ­ing about film from an in­formed lay per­spec­tive since March 1988. He served on the first Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Fes­ti­val ju­ry last year and wrote the ju­ry's re­port. BC will pick a film of the day for every day of the fes­ti­val.

Two films are picked to­day, the first part of the Stu­dio Film Club Asif Ka­pa­dia dou­ble fea­ture: Sen­na: (Asif Ka­pa­dia/ 2010/ UK/doc­u­men­tary-sports/ 106 min­utes) 7.30 pm Stu­dio Film Club, Build­ing 7, Fer­nan­des In­dus­tri­al Cen­tre, East­ern Main Road, Laven­tille; and Son­ny Boy: (An­drew Lang/ 2009 UK-Cu­ba/doc­u­men­tary-sports/ 88 min­utes/for all ages). 5.30 pm Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain, Sat­ur­day, Oc­to­ber 1, In­sti­tute for Crit­i­cal Think­ing, UWI, Sun­day, Oc­to­ber 2, 7 pm Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain. Films start prompt­ly at ad­ver­tised times. Movi­eTowne and Lit­tle Carib The­atre $25. All oth­er screen­ings ad­mis­sion free. Vis­it www.ttfilm­fes­ti­val.com for more in­for­ma­tion.

In the­o­ry, artis­tic free­dom does not ex­ist in Cu­ba. In re­al­i­ty, the finest cin­e­ma in the arch­i­pel­ago comes from there, at least part­ly, in the case of this doc­u­men­tary. Di­rec­tor Lang is British but has a strong Latin Amer­i­can con­nec­tion. Schooled in Chile and Cu­ba it­self, his first fea­ture-length film is a deeply sym­pa­thet­ic doc­u­men­tary fol­low­ing the stu­dents of the Ha­vana Box­ing Acad­e­my, fo­cus­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly on three mem­bers of the Un­der-10 team. The young box­ers live in dor­mi­to­ries and train in fa­cil­i­ties that would shame pris­ons in the First World. The punch­ing bags are old trac­tor tyres sus­pend­ed on ropes; few walls have seen a paint­brush this gen­er­a­tion; and no two stu­dents wear the same kit.

The PE class at your av­er­age West In­di­an sec­ondary school has bet­ter equip­ment and gear. Yet, year af­ter year, Cu­ba pro­duces Olympic cham­pi­on box­ers in most di­vi­sions. Lang's film goes a long way to­wards ex­plain­ing why. With great sen­si­tiv­i­ty but with­out the slight­est sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty, Lang re­veals the hearts of the young­sters-and, in one un­for­get­table scene in which he is him­self re­duced to tears, that of their coach-as be­ing the spir­it of Fi­del Cas­tro's Cu­ba. The build­ings are de­cay­ing; there is not a car on the is­land with pow­er win­dows; young men in the street go bare­backed, not for style, but be­cause they don't have shirts-but, still, these hu­man be­ings re­main un­de­feat­ed. A beau­ti­ful film filled with he­roes, most of them too young to sit the Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion As­sess­ment.