The
trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) today unveiled its first selections for
this year’s edition of the Festival with the announcement that ten classic
Caribbean films will form part of the 2015 lineup.
These
ten films will screen in a special sidebar to the main programme in honour of
the ttff’s tenth anniversary. The Festival takes place from September 15–29.
“Many
people are unaware that there has been a Caribbean film industry for quite some
time, or that almost every country in the region has produced feature films,”
said Bruce Paddington, ttff Founder and Festival Director. “We are therefore
very proud to present ten of the very best classic films from the Caribbean
that will help one to appreciate and enjoy the rich diversity of the region.”
Comprising
films from nine different countries, the sidebar ranges across the English-,
Spanish-, French- and Dutch-speaking sections of the region.
The
lineup includes the Jamaican classic,
The Harder They Come, and
Bim,
from T&T.
Memories
of Underdevelopment, the oldest film in
the lineup, is from 1968, while the most recent,
Strawberry and Chocolate,
was released in 1993. Both of those films hail from Cuba.
The
full slate of films is as follows:
Memories
of Underdevelopment (Tomás Gutiérrez
Alea, Cuba, 1968)
The
Harder They Come (Perry Henzell,
Jamaica, 1972)
Bim (Hugh A. Robertson, Trinidad and Tobago, 1974)
One
People (Pim de la Parra, Suriname,
1976)
Man
By the Shore (Raoul Peck, Haiti, 1983)
Sugar
Cane Alley (Euzhan Palcy, Martinique,
1983)
One
Way Ticket (Agliberto
Menéndez, Dominican Republic, 1988)
What Happened to
Santiago (Jacobo Morales, Puerto Rico, 1989)
Ava
and Gabriel: A Love Story (Felix de Rooy,
Curaçao, 1990)
Strawberry
and Chocolate (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan
Carlos Tabío, Cuba, 1993)
In addition to
screening in honour of the Festival’s tenth anniversary, the classics also
screen in recognition of the launch of the Caribbean Film Database, an online
resource which, in the first instance, will
present information on over 600 independent feature-length films made in and
about the Caribbean. The database is co-financed by the ACP Cultures+ Programme
(ACP
Group of States), funded
by the European Union (European Development Fund) and implemented by the ACP Group of States.
The
rest of the lineup for the ttff/15 will be unveiled over the upcoming months.
For more information about the Festival, visit ttfilmfestival.com.
The
trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) celebrates
films from and about the Caribbean and its diaspora, as well as from world
cinema, through an annual festival and year-round screenings. In addition, the
ttff seeks to facilitate the growth of Caribbean cinema by offering a
wide-ranging industry programme and networking opportunities. The ttff is presented by Flow and given leading sponsorship by bpTT, and
supporting sponsorship by the Embassy of the United States of America.
