Ja­nine Charles-Far­ray

"The days of the starv­ing artist must be over,” de­clared Founder and fes­ti­val Di­rec­tor Bruce Padding­ton at last Tues­day’s open­ing of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Fes­ti­val 2018 (ttff/18).

It was a fit­ting con­clu­sion to a rous­ing speech on the growth of the Fes­ti­val since its found­ing in 2006, the ex­is­tence of which came from a lack of avail­abil­i­ty of lo­cal films in the lo­cal mar­ket. Padding­ton high­light­ed a few de­vel­op­men­tal land­marks since those ear­ly days of strug­gle for lo­cal films.

He cit­ed the in­creas­ing preva­lence of T&T films “on our screens and in the sky” - in lo­cal cin­e­ma chains such as Fes­ti­val Venue part­ners Movi­etowne, and two lo­cal films re­cent­ly in­clud­ed on the Caribbean Air­lines in-flight ser­vice. These bud­ding av­enues for rev­enue gen­er­a­tion for lo­cal film­mak­ers were hailed as pos­i­tive in­di­ca­tors of change in a lo­cal in­dus­try, an in­dus­try which has ar­guably been over­looked as a vi­able av­enue for fi­nan­cial fea­si­bil­i­ty in the wider cre­ative sec­tor.

Oth­er speak­ers at the open­ing in­clud­ed re­cent­ly ap­point­ed Pres­i­dent of BP Trinidad and To­ba­go, Claire Fitz­patrick and Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Cul­ture and the Arts, Dr. The Ho­n­ourable Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly. Con­tin­u­ing the an­nounce­ment of good news for film­mak­ers, Gads­by-Dol­ly used her mo­ment in the spot­light to an­nounce the win­ners of the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed grant fund­ing pro­gramme, the ‘Take One Fea­ture Film Grant’ for emerg­ing lo­cal first time fea­ture film­mak­ers, spear­head­ed by the Min­istry in as­so­ci­a­tion with the New World Film Cen­tre, par­ent com­pa­ny of the ttff/18.

Win­ners an­nounced were Kevin Adams for ‘Queen of So­ca’, Mya Co­zi­er for ‘She Par­adise’ and Fix­er­Film Pro­duc­tions for ‘Grace and Saleem’ writ­ten by Jian Hen­nings. In an in­dus­try starved for funds since the dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of oth­er lo­cal­ly ac­ces­si­ble film grants, the ‘Take one Fea­ture Film Grant’ could rep­re­sent a wel­come in­jec­tion of in­vest­ment which may see a re­ju­ve­na­tion in the pro­duc­tion of fea­ture films.

Cel­e­brat­ing its thir­teenth edi­tion, the ttff/18 drew a size­able crowd at the Lord Kitch­en­er (Ald­wyn Roberts) Au­di­to­ri­um, Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) Port of Spain and has done its part in in­creas­ing the au­di­ences and en­hanc­ing the range of dis­tri­b­u­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties for lo­cal films.

Of the 111 films sched­uled to be screened this year, the ma­jor­i­ty were an­nounced to be from Trinidad and To­ba­go, which, as a part of Na­tion­al Pa­tri­o­tism month, will be fea­tured in an ‘all-lo­cal film’ day, at all Fes­ti­val venues, on Mon­day 24th Sep­tem­ber 2018 (Re­pub­lic Day).

The open­ing film of the fes­ti­val was ‘HERO: In­spired by the Ex­tra­or­di­nary Life and Times of Mr. Ul­ric Cross’ by Trin­bag­on­ian British-Cana­di­an film­mak­er, Frances-Anne Solomon. Cast and crew of ‘HERO’, de­scribed as a Doc­u­men­tary Fea­ture/Docu­d­ra­ma, walked the light­ed “green car­pet” up the front steps of NA­PA to greet those who had come to sup­port the movie and was rep­re­sent­ed by a few of the film’s ac­tors and crew join­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go pre­miere from over four con­ti­nents.

The cast in­cludes ac­tors from Trinidad and To­ba­go, Ghana, the UK and Cana­da in­clud­ing Trinidad’s Nick­o­lai Sal­cedo in the lead role of Ul­ric Cross; Cana­da’s Pe­ter Williams (Star­gate-SG1); the UK’s Joseph Mar­cell, (Fresh Prince of Be­lair), Jim­my Ak­ing­bo­la (In The Long Run), Pip­pa Nixon (Pan­ic), Fras­er James (Res­i­dent Evil) and Er­ic Kofi Abre­fa (Julie); Ghana­ian su­per­stars John Dume­lo and Ad­jetey Anang; and fea­tur­ing cameos by well-known East En­ders star Rudolph Walk­er and Nol­ly­wood star O.C. Uke­je.

HERO is set in 1941 fea­tur­ing Ul­ric Cross, a young man from Trinidad who leaves his is­land home to seek his for­tune. He emerges from World War II as the RAF’s most dec­o­rat­ed West In­di­an. Cross’ long life spanned key mo­ments of the 20th cen­tu­ry in­clud­ing in­de­pen­dence in Africa and the Caribbean. Shot in Ghana, UK and T + T, the film is not just about his life but of the ex­tra­or­di­nary and trans­for­ma­tive times he lived in, and tells the un­told sto­ry of those Caribbean pro­fes­sion­als who helped to lib­er­ate Africa from colo­nial­ism.

More in­fo: https://ttfilm­fes­ti­val.com