The T&T Film Fes­ti­val (ttff) will launch its pro­gramme of events for this year with its third an­nu­al Car­ni­val Film Se­ries. Spon­sored by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Com­pa­ny (TTFC) as part of the T&T Film Nights com­mu­ni­ty film screen­ings ini­tia­tive, the se­ries show­cas­es Car­ni­val-themed films, and takes place from Jan­u­ary 23 to Feb­ru­ary 5 at venues across the coun­try. Ad­mis­sion is free and all screen­ings start at 7pm.

A re­lease from the film fes­ti­val said the pro­gramme gets un­der­way on Jan­u­ary 23 at Medul­la Art Gallery in Wood­brook, where there will be a trib­ute to cel­e­brat­ed Car­ni­val band­leader, Pe­ter Min­shall. The trib­ute will take the form of screen­ings of two films about Min­shall and his work: Rat Race and Mas­man: The Com­plete Work, both di­rect­ed by Dal­ton Nar­ine.

Then on Fri­day 25 Jan­u­ary ca­lyp­so archivist and afi­ciona­do Ray Funk will make a pre­sen­ta­tion at the am­phithe­atre of the Na­tion­al Li­brary, Port-of-Spain. This 90-minute event will in­clude the screen­ing of vin­tage, nev­er-be­fore-seen video footage of Mighty Spar­row, Lord Chris­to, Des­per­a­does, Cav­a­liers and oth­ers.

Jan­u­ary 27 will see the pro­gramme move in­to Cou­va, at Holy Faith Con­vent. Here three films will be screened: the stick­fight­ing doc­u­men­tary Mys­tic Fight­ers, di­rect­ed by So­phie Mey­er; Jef­frey's Ca­lyp­so, a short dra­mat­ic film writ­ten and di­rect­ed by Vashti An­der­son; and Cen­tre-stag­ing the Jamette, an in­ter­view with Machel Mon­tano con­duct­ed by Sr There­sa Vial­va.

To­ba­go will then get its share of the ac­tion, with a screen­ing of Ka­ma­lo Deen's clas­sic com­e­dy Bac­cha­nal Time, fea­tur­ing ap­pear­ances by Mighty Shad­ow, Crazy, Ca­lyp­so Rose and oth­ers. This takes place on Jan­u­ary 30, at Movi­eTowne in Low­lands.

The pro­gramme comes to an end on Feb­ru­ary 5 at Trevor's Edge, St John's Road, St Au­gus­tine. Here there will be a screen­ing of Jab: The Blue Dev­ils of Paramin, di­rect­ed by Alex de Vertueil, and a se­ries of short films by Yao Rame­sar, on tra­di­tion­al mas char­ac­ters and the fire dance.

The ttff is held an­nu­al­ly in Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber, is pre­sent­ed by Flow and giv­en lead­ing spon­sor­ship by RBC Roy­al Bank and bpTT.

�2 For more in­for­ma­tion please vis­it www.ttfilm­fes­ti­val.com or call 621-0709.

?