It is said that every sto­ried sto­ry has its ebb and flow-the good times and the bad. To every sto­ry there is a be­gin­ning-the sto­ried be­gin­ning-"Once up­on a time." The tale of T&T film in­dus­try is no ex­cep­tion. Ac­cord­ing to Jonathan Ali of the T&T Film Fes­ti­val, lack of fi­nanc­ing, mar­ket­ing, and dis­tri­b­u­tion had stymied the cre­ative out­put of lo­cal tal­ent. "Over the years," he said, "there had been lit­tle as­sis­tance from a pri­vate and gov­ern­men­tal lev­el." Un­der­stand­ing the ma­trix of vari­ables in­volved in the mak­ing of a ro­bust and prof­itable in­dus­try, he called for the re­gion to at­tract more in­ter­na­tion­al film mak­ers and for lo­cal cin­e­mas to do their part in screen­ing lo­cal ef­forts. "This will en­sure that lo­cal film mak­ers can get more ex­pe­ri­ence in a pro­fes­sion­al en­vi­ron­ment."

Some­what hand­i­capped on many fronts, the T&T Film fes­ti­val has still en­dured, en­joy­ing a phoenix-like re­vival-at home and in the Caribbean Di­as­po­ra. Alas, the vis­tas for mon­etis­ing and in­ter­na­tion­al­is­ing lo­cal tal­ent have nev­er been more avail­able. To­day, op­por­tu­ni­ties are plen­ti­ful, a boon to a once mori­bund field. Ali's an­tic­i­pa­to­ry tone was palat­able. He made men­tion of the Ja­maican ur­ban dra­mas-Ghett'a Life and Bet­ter Mus' Come, and the An­tiguan made, Skin. An out­put from Bar­ba­dos-Hush, and a Tri­ni fea­ture, Lit­tle Boy Blue, was al­so not­ed. This marked re­sus­ci­ta­tion, he at­trib­uted to the dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion. "More then ever cam­eras are in every­body's hands." He spoke about UWI's film pro­gramme and grants of­fered by the T&T Film com­pa­ny. "Of course, the fes­ti­val is the ide­al plat­form for work to be fea­tured. There is a long way to go but the foun­da­tion has been laid and films are be­ing made." With this new­found profli­ga­cy in the film in­dus­try, New York has been eyed, for it has proven to be the un­fail­ing gate­way to glob­al recog­ni­tion. Think Tribeca Film Fes­ti­val and its hum­ble be­gin­nings.

Fur­ther, New York is the home of a ro­bust Caribbean Di­as­po­ra that has flown the re­gion­al flags in every artis­tic en­deav­our. Now, an in­dis­sol­u­ble bridge has been built be­tween the two com­mu­ni­ties. "Every year we show films from Di­as­po­ra film­mak­ers and we are keen to nur­ture in­sti­tu­tion­al re­la­tion­ships, Ali stat­ed, as he cit­ed part­ner­ships with FE­MI-a fes­ti­val in Guade­loupe, and the Zanz­ibar Film Fes­ti­val in East Africa. "That's why our col­lab­o­ra­tion with CaribBe­ing is so cru­cial and a nat­ur­al part of our growth," he added. CaribBe­ing, the brain child of Shel­ley Wor­rel, has held two high­ly suc­cess­ful film fes­ti­vals in New York since its found­ing in 2009. Dur­ing this year's eclec­tic fes­ti­val sched­uled at the Mu­se­um of Con­tem­po­rary African Di­as­po­ran Arts (Mo­ca­da) in Brook­lyn, an­i­mat­ed films will be front and cen­tre.

And as the re­gion pro­duces more an­i­mat­ed films, An­i­mae Caribe has emerged as the en­gi­neer of in­no­va­tion in what has be­come a com­pet­i­tive field. It has recog­nised the in­dus­try's bil­lion dol­lar po­ten­tial.

An­i­mae's fes­ti­val di­rec­tor, Camille Selvon Abra­hams in­di­cat­ed that much. "The Di­as­po­ra of­fers in­fi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ties. It is so crit­i­cal that we con­nect to this in­cred­i­ble re­source in a mean­ing­ful way. This means that we in the Caribbean have to re-make our­selves and re­vis­it our dis­tri­b­u­tion mod­el." The Brook­lyn KID­flix film fes­ti­val run­ning Au­gust 12 through the 26, will un­veil the chil­dren fo­cussed, Night of An­i­mat­ed Shorts, fea­tur­ing Pros­per, by Wen­dell Mc­Shine which ex­plores the wounds of T&T's post colo­nial na­tion­al­ism. High ex­pec­ta­tions al­so await Project Nin­ja Slip­pers, from an­oth­er Trinidad artist, Make­si Aquan. Screen­ing of adult-ori­ent­ed tra­di­tion­al movies, in­clud­ing Soul Boy, a Kenyan dra­ma, the Trinida­di­an hor­ror flick, 3 Line, and Pan Man, is al­so an­tic­i­pat­ed. Mo­ca­da tout­ed the unique­ness of this year's event, as it pre­miers Mo­CA­DA TV. "It is an ex­cit­ing new rev­o­lu­tion that takes the African Di­as­po­ra out­side the mu­se­um walls in­to the world of tele­vi­sion."

Dr Glenville Ash­by

New York cor­re­spon­dent

Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed