The ninth T&T Film Fes­ti­val runs from Sep­tem­ber 16 to 30. Guardian colum­nist BC Pires served on the first TTFF ju­ry in 2009 and wrote the ju­ry's re­port. BC will pick a Film of the Day for every day of the fes­ti­val. Non-lin­ear, es­sen­tial­ly vi­su­al or spe­cial-in­ter­est films not in­tend­ed for the Vin Diesel crowd will be des­ig­nat­ed as "art films." Films may be cho­sen ahead of oth­er, per­haps "bet­ter," films if the di­rec­tor (or oth­er film­mak­er) is present for a Q&A ses­sion af­ter the screen­ing.

To­day's choice is:Sen­sei Re­demp­tion (Ger­man Gru­ber/2013/ Cu­ra­cao (Nether­lands An­tilles)/Ac­tion-Crime-Dra­ma-Kung Fu Thriller/110 mins/Pa­pi­a­men­to with Eng­lish sub­ti­tles/For ages 18+) 6 pm Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine.

Sen­sei Re­demp­tion is on this year's dra­mat­ic fea­ture ju­ry prize short­list but it should al­so be long and close­ly stud­ied by every Tri­ni wannabe film­mak­er–and some of our sup­pos­ed­ly ac­com­plished ones, too. Beau­ti­ful­ly and lov­ing­ly shot on lo­ca­tion in Cu­ra­cao, by a Cara­cas-born di­rec­tor ob­vi­ous­ly new­ly domi­ciled, Sen­sei Re­demp­tion is a mas­ter class in prop­er film­mak­ing with­out a Hol­ly­wood bud­get.

From the swift, com­plete telling of the back­sto­ry be­fore the ti­tles are fin­ished to the chore­o­graphed dou­ble ka­ta at sun­set that clos­es an al­most seam­less film, near­ly every mo­ment teach­es a les­son to those aware–or hum­ble–enough to learn; such as, how you can make one char­ac­ter (the hero) ap­pear to have aged by al­low­ing his hair to grow out, and an­oth­er (the vil­lain) to have done the same thing by shav­ing his head. There are great re­wards for the view­er for the film­mak­er pay­ing at­ten­tion to fine de­tail.

The lo­ca­tions are painstak­ing­ly cho­sen, the per­haps non-pro­fes­sion­al ac­tors mas­ter­ful­ly di­rect­ed and the script is close to flaw­less, even with what might have been man­gled, in less ca­pa­ble hands, in­to a huge­ly pre­ten­tious voiceover of mar­tial arts phi­los­o­phy.

The fight scenes–cru­cial to the suc­cess of a kung fu movie–are done cin�ma v�rit� style, es­chew­ing wires and air stunts al­to­geth­er, and work won­der­ful­ly for that re­al­ism, with a gen­uine coup de grace com­ing in the last bat­tle se­quence. Add a score (by Her­man Witkam) that, at its best mo­ments, could have been writ­ten by Hans Zim­mer and you have a very high bench­mark which all fu­ture Caribbean mar­tial arts films–and all the oth­ers–could do well to em­u­late.

Best of the rest:The Cut­lass (short) 10.30 am Movi­eTowne Port-of-Spain; Man­aka­man (art) 1.30 pm, Cubes, 3.30 pm, Be­hav­iour, 5.30 pm Lit­tle Carib The­atre, PoS; * Pe­lo Ma­lo, 5.30 pm Movi­eTowne, To­ba­go.

�2 Films start prompt­ly at ad­ver­tised times. �2 Starred* films have been or will be picked as dai­ly se­lec­tions. �2 Guardian Me­dia Ltd is an of­fi­cial part­ner of the T&T Film Fes­ti­val.

To­day's Sched­uleat the Film Fes­ti­val

Movi­eTowne, PoS

10.30 am: �2 Hid­den Av­enue: Daniel Ahye, 2014, T&T / Nar­ra­tive Short / 4 mins / Eng­lish / PG13

�2 Last Night: Ayesha Jor­dan, 2014, T&T / Nar­ra­tive Short / 6 mins / Eng­lish / GA

�2 How Many Times?: Ryan Khan, 2014, T&T / Nar­ra­tive Short / 19 mins / Eng­lish / 14+

�2 The Cut­lass: Dar­isha Beres­ford, 2013, T&T / Nar­ra­tive Short / 11 mins / Eng­lish / 14+

�2 Clean­ing House: Toni Black­ford, 2013, Ja­maica / Nar­ra­tive Short / 14 mins / Eng­lish / 14+

�2 Fly­ing the Coup: Ryan Lee, 2014, T&T / Nar­ra­tive Short / 24 mins / Eng­lish / PG13.

1 pm: �2 Full Cir­cle: Maria Go­v­an, 2014, Ba­hamas / Nar­ra­tive Short / 17 mins / Eng­lish / 14+

�2 Difret: Zere­se­nay Berhane Mehari, 2014, Ethiopia / Nar­ra­tive fea­ture / 99 mins / Amhar­ic, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / 14+

3.30 pm: �2 The Cloud: Mar­cel Bel­tr�n, 2013, Cu­ba / Nar­ra­tive Short / 20 mins / Span­ish, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / PG

�2 Dust: Julio Hern�ndez Cord�n, 2012, Guatemala / Nar­ra­tive fea­ture / 80 mins / Span­ish, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / 16+

6 pm: �2 Belle: Am­ma As­ante, 2013, UK / Nar­ra­tive fea­ture / 105 mins / Eng­lish / PG / View Trail­er

8.30 pm: �2 The Lib­er­a­tor: Al­ber­to Arvelo, 2013, Venezuela, Spain / Nar­ra­tive fea­ture / 119 mins / Span­ish, French, Eng­lish, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / 14+

The Lit­tle Carib The­atre, Wood­brook

1.30 pm: �2 Dark Light: Per H�ttner, 2013, T&T / Nar­ra­tive Short / 7 mins / Eng­lish / PG �2 Man­aka­mana: Stephanie Spray and Pa­cho Velez, 2013, USA, Nepal / Doc­u­men­tary fea­ture / 120 mins / Nepali, Eng­lish, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / GA

3.30 pm: �2 Cubes: Ryan Lee, 2013, T&T / Nar­ra­tive Short / 10 mins / Eng­lish / GA �2 A Sto­ry About Wendy 2: Sean Hodgkin­son, 2014, T&T / Nar­ra­tive / 63 mins / Eng­lish / PG

5.30 pm: Be­hav­iour: Ernesto Daranas Ser­ra­no, 2014, Cu­ba / Nar­ra­tive / 100 mins / Span­ish, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / 14+

8 pm: �2 This Is­land: Cris­t­ian Car­retero, 2014, Puer­to Ri­co / Nar­ra­tive Short / 12 mins / Span­ish, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / 16+

The Way He Looks: Daniel Ribeiro, 2014, Brazil / Nar­ra­tive fea­ture / 96 mins / Por­tuguese, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / 14+

Movi­eTowne To­ba­go

5.30 pm: �2 Old Moon: Raisa Bon­net, 2013, Puer­to Ri­co / Nar­ra­tive Short / 11 mins / Span­ish, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / PG13

Pe­lo Ma­lo: Mar­i­ana Rond�n, 2013, Venezuela / Nar­ra­tive fea­ture / 93 mins / Span­ish, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / 16+

8 pm: �2 Art Con­nect: Liv­er­pool: Wen­dell Mc Shine, 2012, UK,T&T / Doc­u­men­tary Short / 6 mins / Eng­lish / GA

�2 Art Con­nect: Miquel Galofr�, 2014, T&T / Doc­u­men­tary / 74 mins / Eng­lish / GA / View Trail­er

UWI

10 am: �2 The World of Goopi and Bagha: Shilpa Ranade, 2013, In­dia / An­i­mat­ed fea­ture / 78 mins / Hin­di, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / GA

Noon: �2 Cows Wear­ing Glass­es: Alex San­ti­a­go P�rez, 2014, Puer­to Ri­co / Nar­ra­tive / 93 mins / Span­ish, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / PG

2 pm: �2 The For­got­ten King­dom: An­drew Mudge, 2012, Lesotho, South Africa, USA / Nar­ra­tive fea­ture / 96 mins / Tsot­si­taal, Sesotho, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / PG13

4 pm: Pe­lo Ma­lo: Mar­i­ana Rond�n, 2013, Venezuela / Nar­ra­tive fea­ture / 93 mins / Span­ish, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / 16+

6 pm: Sen­sei Re­demp­tion: Ger­man Gru­ber, 2014, Cu­ra�ao / Nar­ra­tive / 119 mins / Pa­pi­a­men­tu, Eng­lish sub­ti­tles / 16+

Medul­la Art Gallery, Wood­brook

Noon to 6 pm �2 New Me­dia Ex­hi­bi­tion