And the winners are...

First off, apologies. There I was, all set to liveblog the closing ceremony of the trinidad+tobago film festival/09. Then I get to the venue, and what do I find? No WiFi access. (Is there a worse way to break a blogger's heart?) Anyway, there will be a fuller post later, with photos, but for now, here are your winners....


Best film

Carmen and Geoffrey, directed by Nick Doob and Linda Atkinson


Best Trinidad & Tobago film

The Solitary Alchemist, directed by Mariel Brown


People's choice award, best feature film

The Ghost of Hing King Estate, directed by Horace Ové


People's choice award, best documentary

Mas Man, directed by Dalton Narine


People's choice award, best short

Coolie Pink and Green, directed by Patricia Mohammed


Congratulations to all winners. More to come soon.

Adoor Gopalakrishnan at UWI

Indian filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan speaks at the screening of his film Four Women, which took place yesterday at UWI


How do you know when you're in the presence of a Great Artist? Yesterday afternoon at the School of Education at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, the University's Film Programme, in association with the Indian High Commission and the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Cultural Cooperation, hosted the Indian director Adoor Gopalakrishnan, for a screening of his TTFF entry, Four Women.

Having seen the film previously I knew how good it was, and I knew that Gopalakrishnan, with a dozen feature films and many short and documentary films to his credit, is one of India's greatest living filmmakers. But it wasn't until after the screening when this small, soft-spoken, grey-haired man took questions from the audience that his true genius was impressed upon me. The session, which lasted around forty-five minutes, could have gone on for hours, as Gopalakrishnan spoke with eloquence and wit about a host of topics, including the nature of Indian cinema, adapting literature to film, working with famous actors, and how much you can tell about a man by the way he eats his food. Here are some quotes from a conversation with an undeniably Great Artist.


"Indian cinema is widely taken for Bollywood. I am an outsider to Bollywood. It [Bollywood] sort of tries to entertain you, whatever you take to be entertainment."

-- On mainstream Hindi-language cinema (Bollywood), and his relation to it


"There is no one Indian cinema. There are Indian cinemas, [and] there are equally bad films in all [Indian] languages."

-- On the notion of Indian cinema as a monolith, and the idea that all non-Bollywood cinema is superior to Bollywood


"A whole country's cinema is being misrepresented by Bollywood."

-- On the hegemony of Bollywood


"The DVD can never match film projection. Never. Maybe one day."

-- On DVD vs film projection


"What is written is meant to be read. What I do is for you to see and hear."

-- On the difference between written texts, and filmic adaptation of those texts


"They are all fine artists.... They are wasting their talents in bad films, and they know it. [So] they are excited to work with me."

-- On the actors, many of them commercial Indian cinema stars, he works with


"Just think...don't 'act'. I can read your thoughts in your face. That's the magic of cinema."

-- His advice to his actors


"Ultimately, the actor is acting to me, not the audience. I am the audience."

-- On the difference between directing actors for screen as opposed to stage


"I never compromise."

-- On what makes him unique as a director

Liveblogging the TTFF09 awards

Dear Friends of the Festival,

After two weeks of films, workshops, Q&A sessions, panel discussions and parties, the trinidad+tobago film festival/09 comes to an end this evening, with the official closing film, awards ceremony and reception at MovieTowne.

At 5.45pm the screening of Carmen and Geoffrey takes place, with guest of honour Geoffrey Holder in attendance. After the screening, the awards will be announced. This year, in addition to the regular people's choice awards (for best short, best documentary and best feature), there are for the first time jury prizes, for best film and best locally made film. All awards cary cash prizes: the prize for best film is US$10,000, the best local film is worth TT$30,000, and each people's choice winner gets TT$5,000.

The awards will we announced from around 8pm, and Melanie and I will be bringing the results (almost) live, as they are announced. So log on and join us for all the action, and see if your favourite film from this year's festival walks away with any honours. Unfortunately, we won't be blogging the after-party--you'll just have to imagine what that was like for yourselves.

Until this evening!

The Cinema of Satyajit Ray and Coolie Pink and Green at MovieTowne

Patricia Mohammed speaks after the screening of her film, Coolie Pink and Green

Adam Low speaks after the screening of his film, The Cinema of Satyajit Ray

On September 25 the ttff/09 screened two films as part of our new heritage focus. This year the cinematic spotlight was on India so, of course, we couldn't let the festival pass without taking a look at the work of Satyajit Ray, arguably India's best filmmaker. UK documentary filmmaker, Adam Low, was present for the screening of his film, The Cinema of Satyajit Ray. Immediately following Low's documentary was the experimental short, Coolie Pink and Green, which was directed by Patricia Mohammed, a Trinidadian scholar. After the screening of the two very different films, Low and Mohammed answered a few questions about their experiences making their works.

When an audience member commented that Ray looked like a scary person to shoot, Low said that, no, Ray had been extremely obliging throughout the interview process, which took place over a few days, fairly recently after Ray had been ill. Low said that the making of the film had been a happy experience and that what he ultimately took out of it wasn't the cultural differences between himself and Ray but the lesson that "the distance between us is very small; we're closer than we think." Another crucial point that Low brought up at the Q&A was the importance of a filmmaker finding and then using his or her own visual language. And, as for spoken language, Low firmly believes that it shouldn't be a barrier to understanding a film as, "the most important moments are felt, not spoken. There's no need to state things when you can show them."

Pat, on the other hand, took a slightly different approach to her film, which relied, in part, on a spoken narrative. When asked why she chose to make the film and why she chose to call it what she did, Pat replied: "I wanted to make a film about India but specifically for Trinidad & Tobago . . . As for the name: 'coolie' has been used as a derogative word [to describe people of Indian descent] so I wanted to confront the use of the word in order to remove the stigma attached to it. The second part, the 'pink and green' I included for aesthetic value." The film emerged in a different way—through verse—as Pat wanted to "move beyond the style of documentaries. Instead of talking heads I decided to go to something more poetic," she noted.

The ttff heritage element acknowledges and celebrates the various national cultures that have influenced the Caribbean, and Trinidad and Tobago in particular. In this, our inaugural year of the heritage element of the festival, the focus was on India. Next year we're thinking Africa but we'll, of course, confirm that once we're sure!

Christopher Din Chong, production and editing assistant of Coolie Pink and Green speaks after the screening. To his left is crew member, Michael Mooledhar

Adam Low (centre) speaks with visiting filmmaker, Juan Gélas, and ttff creative director, Emilie Upczak before the screening of his documentary

The second filmmakers' panel

Filmmakers' panel, from left to right: Marina Salandy Brown (moderator), Ishmahil Blagrove, Adam Lowe, Mariel Brown, Steve McAlpin, Lawrence Coke, and Juan Gélas

Last Friday, members of the ttff sat with a few of our guest filmmakers at Chaud Restaurant for a panel moderated by festival executive director, Marina Salandy Brown. This was the second and final filmmakers' panel for the 09 season. We welcomed the public to come take in the discussion free of charge, and the coffee and pastries were on us, too. Marina asked several interesting questions throughout the discussion, many of which have been or will be answered in detail in previous or subsequent posts. Two very simple questions asked were ones I hadn't yet heard answered by our guests: "How did you become a filmmaker?" and "Any last words?" If you've ever wanted to ask either of these questions, then read on. Even if you haven't wanted to ask either of these questions then I still suggest you read on, as the stories to follow are as much about society and choice and Life as they are about specific aspects of a career in film.

Juan Gélas, French/English documentary filmmaker based in Paris. His film, The Metamorphosis of Anguilla was screened at ttff/09 

As a producer some 10-15 years ago, Juan gave cameras to filmmakers and sent them out to make films. He found the energy surrounding filmmaking to be incredible and soon knew enough about making films, although he wasn't technically sound. Then came the digital age when cameras became affordable so he got one and began learning how to shoot himself. He shot often on his own and began to move into the independent filmmaking world. He likes this relatively new and freer method of making films but acknowledges the challenges of finding a way to finance the films he wants to make. The flip side of that, however, is that he has a lot of power as a sole filmmaker, as he has the opportunity to tell the stories he wishes to tell in the way he wishes to tell them. He also will spend months shooting the same subject (not continuously, of course) as he likes the bonds he makes in the process of making a film.

Juan's last words: Not every story can be told, not when you're dealing with reality and the world.

Lawrence Coke, UK filmmaker and bfm guest. His short films, Melvin: Portrait of a Player, Morally Speaking, and One Day at a Time, were screened at ttff/09

Award-winning master of spinning a succinct yarn, Lawrence starting making short films as a way to explore improvised comedy. He made a deliberate decision not to shoot his shorts in the same style—each is a testament to doing something slightly different. "Comedy is easy," he notes. He also believes that shorts are a great way for a filmmaker to establish his or her track record, which goes a long way towards getting funding for larger projects. Case in point: Lawrence is currently working on expanding one of his shorts into a feature.

Lawrence's last words: When dealing with the media, it's important to find out who you're working with. Research it. You need to have a clear and concise idea and a sense of responsibility as a filmmaker.

Steve McAlpin, US/Jamaican filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. His film, Bashment: The Fork in the Road was screened at ttff/09

Steve was a slam poet at the time he and his friends decided to make a film about their experiences of moving to America. They hadn't planned on making it for anyone but themselves. Using MS Word, they wrote the script over a summer break, shot it over 8 months with a home camera and then put it together with an editor. They made 2,000 DVDs and sold them out in 2 weeks and then made 2,000 more but, by then, the film had been heavily bootlegged so demand for the DVDs decreased sharply. But the overall experience left them surprised them and gave them the confidence to make a more polished film. Their second film built on their experience of making the first.

Steve's last words: I encourage you to take the time to learn all aspects of film, from the ground up. It's Ok to start where you start, but be sure to get better.

Mariel Brown, Trinidadian documentary filmmaker. Her film, The Solitary Alchemist, screened at ttff/09 and her film, The Insatiable Season, was a People's Choice Award winner at the ttff/07

In her early 20s, Mariel was a journalist for a local TV station but routinely had near nervous breakdowns and an ulcer or two. She loved the medium of TV but would fall apart every day and recalls that her father once told her that, "Journalists lived with their faces pressed against reality." At the time she worked in TV, there was nothing else going on other than making news so she shot the pilot of a cooking show but then left Trinidad for Jamaica, burnt out in her mid-20s. She fell in love with (and in) Jamaica and stayed for a few years but returned to Trinidad at 29 and sold her cooking show to a local station and then made the show for 6 seasons. But she remained "most interested in trials of the heart and why we make the decisions that we make," and so she set out to explore just that through documentary films.

Mariel's last words: Don't apologise for where you have to start; ultimately, it has no bearing. Be sensitive to your subject. There's no need to reveal everything that you could reveal.

Adam Lowe, UK documentary filmmaker. His film, The Cinema of Satyajit Ray, screened at the ttff/09 and his film, Arena: The Strange Luck of V.S. Naipaul screened at the ttff/08

Adam started with a few words to the wise: A person is never who you think they are. You have to register and monitor your own connection to your subject. At a young age, Adam got an apprenticeship with the BBC and worked hard to make himself indispensable. He became a producer in his 20s and, in the 80s was sent to Trinidad to shoot a film on Shiva Naipaul. He admitted to being a bit different than our other panelists, in that he "doesn't know one end of a camera from the other." But he found a niche position in making films about artists and writers and such, and thinks of film biographies as fascinating and noted that his canvas has gotten bigger and bigger over the years. Adam spoke about becoming absorbed in his work and of the fact that he learned and earned his reputation and was never one to follow a traditional route—a route that, he admits is difficult but not impossible to pursue.

Adam's last words: Eliminate obvious use of the word, "I". When filmmaking is at its best, people will experience your individual perception of a subject.

Ishmahil Blagrove, UK documentary filmmaker and bfm guest. His films, Hasta Siempre and This is Our Country Too were screened at the ttff/09

Ishmahil once worked in personal security and, through this work, met a lot of filmmakers. He knew he wanted to be more intimately involved in filmmaking and so learnt how to operate a camera and got a job working for the BBC and Channel 4 as a correspondent. He soon realised, though, that working for an organisation meant that he would not have complete creative control over the stories he wanted to tell. Once the technology to make films became affordable and, thus, accessible, he acquired his equipment with the goal of being totally independent. He quit the BBC and got together with a few others to found his current independent film company, RiceNPeas. Today, they shoot films around the world, keeping the costs as low as possible through innovative measures.

Ishmahil's last words: Reinvent the wheel; learn to draw but then throw out the rules. There's no such thing as being objective. Be aware of yourself and your prejudices and class dynamics. Live in your own experience and lose the romance.

The use of archival footage in documentary filmmaking

British documentary filmmaker Adam Low at yesterday afternoon's workshop


So yesterday afternoon at the Hotel Normandie, after the team-led morning workshop on the theory and practice of documentary filmmaking, British documentary filmmaker and trinidad+tobago film festival regular Adam Low, who was part of the morning session, did a solo stint on the use and misuse of archive film footage in documentaries.

The subject might seem a somewhat obscure one, and I myself admit to being slightly taken aback when I first learned it was one of the workshop topics at this year's festival. But just give it a moment's thought and you'll realise that for many, if not most documentary filmmakers, archive material is manna, and knowing how to effectively manipulate it is key to mastering the art of the documentary. Adam's presentation was thorough and incisive--not to mention extremely enjoyable--and I found myself taking such copious notes that I've decided to make this post much more detailed than usual.

After quickly running through the different types of archival footage there are, Adam began to discuss the different ways the material can be used to achieve various ends. He did so by playing clips from a number of films by well-known documentary filmmakers, and examining how archive footage was used in each of them. He began with one of the giants of the documentary, Errol Morris, and clips from his 2004 Academy Award-winning film The Fog of War, about Robert McNamara, who was the US Secretary of Defense during the War in Vietnam.

The Fog of War is essentially a filmed interview with McNamara, interspersed with archive material. The material is mostly quite mundane propaganda military footage, but, the way Morris edits it together, and with the addition of music, as well as bits of taped conversations between McNamara and then US-president Lyndon Johnson, the footage is made ironic, and what McNamara says is undermined and ironicised as well. "It's extremely chilling in the way that the archive material is used," said Adam. "It's used in this poetic way--it becomes a work of art." He added, "Archive is only of any real consequence if you do something creative with it."

The next film Adam showed clips from was First Contact, a 1983 Australian documentary about the native people of the interior of Papua New Guinea in the 1930s encountering outsiders for the first time. The extraordinary archive footage in this film is actually what is known as "found" footage--specifically, film that a prospector shot on a camera he took with him to PNG. Here Adam talked about the sensitivity needed in using such personal footage; one must remember, he said, that the people in this footage aren't actors. More than this, such footage can be problematic, and can come across as exotic, even racist. Yet the primal power of the footage cannot be denied. "Archive footage has the incredible capacity to take you back in time, and bring into focus distant events," Adam declared.

After First Contact was the 2008 documentary The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector, directed by Vikram Jayanti, who, like Adam, makes documentaries for the BBC Two Arena series. Like The Fog of War, Phil Spector is essentially an interview with its subject, intercut with archive footage. Some of the footage is from performances of songs that Spector, the great music wizard who pioneered the "wall of sound" in the 1950s and 60s, wrote and produced. But the bulk of the archive is from Spector's 2007 trial for the murder of his companion Lana Clarkson.

Although Jayanti was banned from the courtroom, he had (free) access to the filmed footage of the trial, and he uses it to astonishing effect in his film, which is, on the surface, about Spector's life in music, and not about his tribulations at all. "You give a meaning to the archival footage which you didn't have before," said Adam, noting the importance here of proper editing. He then played two clips showing scenes from the trial: one was of Spector's past girlfriends testifying to his violent nature, overlaid by the Crystals' infamous "He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)", the other showing Spector's lawyer arguing that the evidence implicating his client was false, soundtracked by the Beatles' "Let It Be" (Spector famously produced the Fab Four's last album).

"We should have a 'Do not try this at home' label stuck to this film," joked Adam, about the film he next showed a clip from, titled, coincidentally, It Felt Like A Kiss, by the king of archive material, the British documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis. This is a film composed entirely of archive material, and its theme is how power works in our modern world. It features footage of, among others, Eldridge Cleaver, Doris Day, Philip K Dick, Enos (a chimpanzee sent into space), Rock Hudson, Saddam Hussein, Richard Nixon, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mobutu Sese Seko, and Tina Turner. All the footage is cut together in a spellbinding way, with, again, the potent use of music, and the bold use of captions. Adam admitted to showing the clip as an extreme example of the use of archive material; Curtis is a unique filmmaker, and no one else does what he does.

Finally, Adam rounded out his presentation with clips from a personal project--not one of his own documentaries, but a film he was asked to do some archive research on. He explained how, with very little budget and only two weeks to work in, he was able (with the assistance of professional archive researchers in the UK) to access and put together archive material to make a film clip to the client's satisfaction. He noted that much archive material is available free at such places as archive.org, and that the BBC is in the process of putting all of its archives online for public access (though not for free).

"I use archive in my films all the time, and it's very enjoyable," said Adam as he wrapped up. As he said this, however, I couldn't help but think that for someone like Adam Low who is British and works a lot with the BBC and has access to much great archive material, it's quite easy to make such a statement. Trinidad and Tobago filmmakers (as well as writers) know how little proper archive material, relatively speaking, is available here, and how difficult such material can be to access where it does exist. But as I was thinking this, Adam made one final point, in answer to a question from the audience.

"Archive is so powerful that if you use it properly, you can make it appear that there's more than there is."

Making the most of what you have--good advice not just for documentary filmmakers, but filmmakers in general.


Catherine Emmanuel, TTFF workshop coordinator, assists Adam Low in his presentation


The audience takes in Adam's presentation

bfm at SFC

ttff/09 bfm guest filmmakers Ishmahil Blagrove (holding mic) and Lawrence Coke

Thursday night marked the final StudioFilmClub screenings for the trinidad+tobago film festival/09. The three nights of last week's programme were programmed by Hilton Als, who chose as his focus artists' films and issues of identity surrounding womanhood. This week's programme differed as the ttff and SFC welcomed the visiting bfm—Black Filmmaker—group from the UK. Present at SFC last night were Nadia Denton, bfm's film festival director; Ishamhil Blagrove, independent documentary filmmaker; and Lawrence Coke, filmmaker. Although UK-based, both filmmakers have roots in the Caribbean.

Before the screenings, Denton gave a little background on the bfm, whose International Film Festival (IFF) is the leading and longest running platform for Black World Cinema in the UK catering to African and Caribbean audiences and those interested in Black arts. In a sort of inspired exchange programme, Trini filmmakers will attend the IFF in London in November.

Three films from bfm filmmakers were screened at SFC. First up was Coke's Melvin: Portrait of a Player, a short film that tells the tale of that guy we all know--the one who is God's gift to women . . . or so he thinks. Melvin was completely improvised and made mockumentary black-and-white style. After the screening, Coke answered a couple of questions on the film. People, inevitably, wanted to know if Melvin was based on a specific person. "He's an amalgamation of a lot of guys," Coke said, adding that he and his friends really just looked for situations that would make them laugh, his main goal being to document that air of confusion that exists in male/female relationships.

Next to be screened was Blagrove's documentary, Hasta Siempre, a film that offers a unique perspective of Cuba from the inside by highlighting what life is like for ordinary Cubans. We were treated to revealing interviews with a cross section of people; ultimately, the image of Cuba that emerged is one of its citizens' pride and their ability to make happy lives in what many perceive as a desperate country. After the screening, Blagrove answered a few questions, the first being how he was able to film in Cuba given their weighty press restrictions. "We applied for journalist visas in August 2005 but were denied," he said. Instead of giving up, his company enrolled a 19-year old guy in a Havana film school, which, of course, was the perfect cover for making a film. The end result is a powerful message of people not only searching for themselves and defining their identity but of a society where there exists a real concern for one's neighbour, and one in which worth is not measured by possessions.

Last on the night's bill was Afro-Saxons, a film by Rachel Wang who, unfortunately, had to cancel her trip to Trinidad at the last minute. Afro-Saxons is a fascinating exploration of the world of Black women's hairstyling in London. Wang interviewed and followed a colourful cast of characters who banded together to tell a tale that was relatively unknown in our parts, yet oh so familiar.

After the last screening it was business as usual at SFC which, of course, meant drinks and liming and smoking and discussing the films that we'd seen and, best of all, chatting with our guests. All in all, a good night.

A full house at Thursday night's SFC programme

The Solitary Alchemist at MovieTowne

Director Mariel Brown (centre) enjoys a hearty round of applause after The Solitary Alchemist, a portrayal of the life and art of Barbara Jardine. With her from left are: Barbie Jardine, Marina Salandy Brown (ttff director), Sean Edghill (cameraman) and Eniola Adelekan (cinematographer)

Yesterday evening, a full house at MovieTowne POS sat enraptured by filmmaker Mariel Brown's documentary, The Solitary Alchemist—an intimate and moving portrayal of the life and art of Trinidadian jeweller, Barbara Jardine. The film traces Barbie's history, from her education at London's Royal College of Art to the return to her native Trinidad in 1974 and her life here since, with a present-day focus on Barbie's creation of a new work for an exhibition in Scotland.

After the film, Mariel answered a few questions with Barbie and Sean Edghill, her cameraman, and Eniola Adelekan, her cinematographer. When asked why she chose to make a movie on Barbie, Mariel said the following: "I have childhood memories of my mother dressing up, getting ready to go out. And then, when I was 16 I saw an exhibition of jewellery at Precious Little and Barbie's piece, In Memoriam was there and I was absolutely gobsmacked as I had never seen figurative work like that."

Years after the show, Mariel curated an exhibition of work by locally-based artist/jewellers and got to know Barbie a bit better. She was delighted when the artist invited her to see a piece she was making, and noted last night that it was evident that Barbie was open to sharing her creative process. After Mariel was asked in 2006 to edit on a book on Barbie, she got to know the artist a bit better and became even more fascinated and realised that there was a story there she wanted to explore.

There are quite a few beautiful shots of Barbie's jewellery in the film and, for this, Mariel gave credit to Eniola and Sean whose technical skills and sensitive eyes succeeded in accomplishing an extremely difficult task. Eniola spoke briefly of the "infinite discipline and patience" required for the work they did in shooting Barbie's pieces, as well as the fact that the silence and stillness of shooting sometimes left him transfixed. Also of note in the film: there is almost no imposed light whatsoever, a deliberate move as Mariel wanted Barbie's home to feel like it does on any given day when there is no camera and crew there. This allowed for a greater intimacy between filmmaker and subject and, in turn, for greater intimacy between viewer and subject. Also of note is the musical track, which was composed specifically for the film and lends itself especially well to specific moments without overpowering the purity of the narrative.

When asked if she had made any compromises, Mariel said that she would have gotten an editor if she could have afforded one instead of editing the work herself (a task for which she pushed herself as far as possible) but, other than that, no. She also told of the process of shooting and how it took longer than she had initially planned. Three months turned to five months and then six, and, before she and Barbie knew it, it had been three years. And, as Barbie noted, it was "three years of ups and downs for both of us." 

And, on the subject of collaboration: To me, one of the loveliest things about the Q&A was that Mariel insisted on having Barbie and the two people who worked so tirelessly on the film by her side as she spoke; that she wanted to share the experience with them, and to acknowledge to everyone present the hard work that they did and the fact that the film couldn't have been made as it was without them. The line of people who stood in front of us: subject, filmmaker, festival director, cameraman, cinematographer, got me to thinking about a film as a miniature life: sure, we might be able to make it without each other, but would the end result be anywhere near as good? Perhaps my sentimentality was a function of watching a film with such strong emotional content. But after Barbie said her last words for the evening—"When you put yourself in the hands of a biographer it's a gesture of trust in that person. I have to thank Mariel for treating me and my work with enormous sensitivity and respect."–I suspected that what I had perceived as sentimentality was, perhaps, something a bit deeper.

A still from The Solitary Alchemist

A full house takes in the post-screening Q&A

Eniola, Mariel, and Sean at MovieTowne after the screening

This is Our Country Too at MovieTowne

bfm guest, Ishmahil Blagrove answers a few questions after yesterday's screening of his documentary, This is Our Country Too. Moderating is ttff director, Marina Salandy Brown

Hello readers, first of all I'd like to apologise for the fact that this post is a day late (hopefully it's not also a dollar short). We've had a busy few days at the festival, so much so that the proliferation of panels and Q&As have meant that I've spent a good part of my days scribbling furiously in cinemas and conference rooms, rather than at home typing.

ANYWAY. Yesterday afternoon we kicked off our ttff/bfm screenings at MovieTowne, POS with the documentary, This is Our Country Too, an educational and downright anger-provoking look at how years of misguided, oppressive and racist official policies have led to the formation of two Australias: One, the wealthy, progressive nation that most outsiders see; the other, the Australia of marginalised Aboriginal communities, beset by a host of problems. Present at the screening was director Ishmahil Blagrove, who answered a few questions after the film.

As with many of our documentary Q&As thus far, the first question raised was why Blagrove chose to make this film. He responded by saying he felt that "the presence of Afro-Asiatic individuals in that part of the world has been excluded from the wider Diaspora." Blagrove's company, RiceNPeas Films, is committed to telling stories of the African individual, not just from the Diaspora but around the world. 

Blagrove then spoke a bit about the making of the film, which took three months to shoot, partially due to the difficulty of negotiating a country as vast as Australia but also because of the difficulty of penetrating the culture of the Aborigines who were, understandably, a bit wary of outsiders documenting their lives. He spoke of wanting to film a coming-of-age ceremony and being refused access until one of elders was consulted and he adopted into the clan. 

One parallel drawn by an audience member was of the parallels between the Aborigines' story and that of Blacks and slavery. Blagrove then talked a bit about how important it is that we are able to negotiate a changing world, and that we can't cling to our puristic views any longer. At the end of This is Our Country Too, there is footage of Australian PM, Kevin Rudd making a formal, public apology to the Aboriginal community. Around that time, there was a lot of excitement and hope for the future of the divided country, but little has changed since then. 

On the issue of exploring hypocrisy, Blagrove noted that this is the main issue about debate and discussion—that it "brings forward new stories and perspectives and creates further dialogue," just one of the reasons he makes the films that he does. The director also spoke about how angry he would become filming some of the stories he had, citing as an example his documentary, Blood Diamond, which came some five years before the Hollywood movie of the same name. Being in Sierra Leone during the war, he wanted to save people but found that it was beneficial to become desensitized and detached. "Our experiences make a story subjective," he noted. I wanted to be as objective as possible in order to tell the story." 

A quick note again to mention that the ttff this year welcomes a few members of the bfm and the bfm, in turn, will host a few local and regional filmmakers during their November film festival in London.

A still from Blagrove's documentary, This is Our Country Too

bfm guests at MovieTowne after the screening (from left to right): Lawrence Coke (filmmaker), Ishmahil Blagrove (filmmaker), Nadia Benton (bfm festival director) with Jamaican/US filmmaker, Steve McAlpin

The TTFF at UWI

Apologies for the lack of photos with this post, but I've been having good old technical difficulties today. Will add the photos as soon as possible.


I'll be the first to admit it: last year's partnership between the trinidad+tobago film festival and the University of the West Indies wasn't exactly a smashing success. Cobbled together at the last minute, the UWI programme for the ttff/08 left much to be desired. Determined not to have a repeat of last year, this year we meticulously planned two days and nights of screenings at UWI, and I am thrilled to report that yesterday, the first day of the programme, was a huge success.

Screenings started on campus from 11am at the Institute of Critical Thinking with a double bill, the student short The Contemporary Sorcerer, directed by Roger Alexis, followed by Carmen and Geoffrey, the wonderfully affectionate documentary portrait of Trinidad-born dancer-actor-painter Geoffrey Holder, and his wife, doyenne of the New York dance world, Carmen de Lavallade, directed by Nick Doob and Linda Atkinson. The screening of Carmen and Geoffrey was a joy to behold, with some of the more than fifty audience members--many of them contemporaries of Geoffrey Holder--getting into the spirit of the film and cheering, or making comments whenever Holder (almost invariably it was Holder) said something witty or striking, about his colonial childhood, experiencing racism in the US, or how to keep a marriage working ("Men, don't change your wives. My wife is Carmen de Lavallade, not Mrs Holder. Mrs Holder is my mother.").

The 1pm screenings continued the theme of biographical portraits of creative personalities, with screenings of a film by former UWI principal Bhoe Tewarie about VS Naipaul, Tribute to a Native Son, and Adam Low's Cinema of Satyajit Ray, about the late, great Indian filmmaker. Both directors were in attendance and introduced their films, Low noting that he shot his not long after Ray had had a heart attack (this was in 1988). This resulted in Low, under Ray's doctors' orders, only being able to film his subject for an hour a day for four days. He also noted that since the shoot was a relatively uncomplicated one, he didn't bring a film crew with him from England to Calcutta, but worked instead with Ray's own crew on the documentary.

After the post-screening Q&A session, Low then introduced Satyajit Ray's first feature film, Pather Panchali, with some help from His Excellency Shri Malay Mishra, the Indian High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago. I'd heard that His Excellency was something of a film buff, but nothing could have prepared me for the detailed, even scholarly, introduction he gave to the film. But what surprised me--and much in the audience, including the Film Programme's coordinator/ttff Founder Bruce Paddington--even more was his unexpected announcement that the High Commission had decided to endow a professorship in Indian cinema at the Film Programme at UWI, to start before the end of 2009.

As for the film, well, what more can be said about Pather Panchali? One of the masterworks in world cinema (along with Aparajito and Apu Sansar, the two films that complete the Apu Trilogy), and one of the three or four greatest first films, Pather Panchali continues to delight the more I see it. It is such an amazingly assured debut, with its brilliant bringing together of luminous cinematography, near-perfect performances and the astoundingly effective use of motifs and music. Ray went on make many more films, some of them better, technically speaking, than Pather Panchali, but for me nothing he did in his later career could surpass the achievement of the Apu films--all human life is there.

The daytime screenings over, the evening screenings then took place at the Film Programme's spacious, soon-to-be new new location at Carmody Street, just off the UWI main campus. The films Suck Meh Soucouyant, Suck Meh, by Oyetayo Ojoade, and Yao Ramesar's Sistagod II were shown. Apart from the screenings, the occasion was an opportunity for the Film Programme to honour the achievements of its students--a number of whom have film in the Festival--as well as honour the graduating class, the Programme's first. It was a fittingly celebratory end to a great day of celebrating film.

**Schedule update: Special Screenings, 25/9 + 26/9**

Dear friends of the festival, we're happy to announce the following special late night screenings, which are not on our website or our printed materials. Screenings will take place at MovieTowne, POS

TODAY Friday 25 September

11.00 pm SHORTS PACKAGE (Total Running Time: 104 minutes)

THE POWER OF THE VAGINA This documentary explores the issue of women’s sexuality and sexual politics, examining opinions and assumptions abut the various ways in which women use their sexuality—and the ways men respond. There are interviews with various experts as well as people in the street, showing how much attitudes towards sex and sexuality have—and have not—changed in our society. 25 minutes

MISTAKEN Richard is a university student who meets a beautiful young woman on campus interested in a one-time fling—no strings attached. They agree on a time and place for their assignation. What the young woman doesn’t know, however, is that Richard has an identical twin brother, Michael. Through a cruel quirk of fate, a simple encounter gets complicated. 7 minutes

SANS SOUCI Ishmael and Garwick are brothers, reunited after years apart when Garwick returns from the United States where he had joined the army and fought in the first Gulf War. The year is 2001, and they meet at their aunt’s house in Sans Souci, where along with Garwick’s girlfriend, Sacha, another friend, Mona, and her boyfriend, Paul, they spend time getting to know one another again. Then comes the day of September 11, when the World Trade Center is destroyed, and tensions in the house explode. 27 minutes

MINUTES TO MIDNITE A noir, fantasy crime drama unfolds when ruthless Trinidadian gang member, Snake, kills his leader, Mr. Tiger. Shortly afterwards, Snake receives a message that someone named Anansi Spider is going to “take care of him.” Following a near-death experience at the hands of a wicked woman, Snake receives a call from Anansi Spider, warning him that his life is in danger. Snake grapples with whether or not to trust this mysterious man, and, ultimately, makes a deadly decision. 20 minutes

COOLIE PINK & GREEN Despite the significant presence of East Indians in the Caribbean, Indian culture has yet to be seen as being truly indigenous. This film projects a new way of seeing Caribbean Indian culture, through the story of a young Hindu girl who is learning the beauty of her culture, even as an elder in her community attempts to hold her in a traditional mould. While the girl is sympathetic to the elder’s views, she already lives in a hybrid culture, and must celebrate both. 25 minutes

Please be advised that short films may be screened in random order, i.e. not necessarily in the order given above

Saturday 26 September

THE GHOST OF HING KING ESTATE

Based on true events and shot entirely on location in Trinidad, The Ghost of Hing King Estate recreates the dramatic tale of mysterious deaths among workers on a local estate. Prior to these events, Hing King was a peaceful, scenic place, although not without its share of life’s usual dramas. Conflicts invoked by sex, lust, marriage, and betrayal grew as readily as the crops themselves, leading to situations at turns distressing and amusing.

But in May 2006, as the deaths began to occur, the relatively peaceful estate was forever changed. Carmelle, the plantation overseer’s wife, becomes vilified as people from nearby villages begin to suspect that she is responsible for the untimely deaths. Amidst mounting tensions, facades are broken down, relationships are tested, and friendships destroyed.

Featuring a simple yet complex cast of characters, Ové’s recreation is a pitch-perfect depiction of village life in Trinidad, and a testament to the fact that the truth will indeed set you free. 104 minutes

The future of co-productions (panel notes)

Attendees at the Commonwealth Foundation panel included (front row): Jen Sobol, programme officer of the CF; Tony Hall, filmmaker; Abigail Hadeed, photographer; (second row from right): Marina Salandy Brown, Executive Director of the ttff and Francesca Hawkins, producer of The Siege and director of Sans Souci

Today was a busy day for us at the trinidad+tobago film festival so I'm cutting the preamble and getting right into things. First on our Republic Day agenda was a panel sponsored by the Commonwealth Foundation on the future of co-productions in the Caribbean. When one plans a workshop that starts at 9 in the morning of a public holiday, one tends to brace for a few empty chairs. And at first it looked like that would be the case, until the trickle of coffee-clutching people grew to a steady flow and the all the seats were taken as people waited to hear from the panelists. 

Participants on the panel included Carla Foderingham (CEO of the Trinidad & Tobago Film Company), Anthony Hall (filmmaker), Bruce Paddington (TTFF Festival Director), Lincoln Price (Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery), Keron Niles (the Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law, Policy and Services), Clyde McKenzie (Jamaican Producer) and Nadia Denton (BFM Festival Director). The panel, which was supposed to end at 12.30 went on until way past 1; people seemed eager to get their ideas and opinions across or maybe they just wanted to stay to enjoy the sensation of being in a room of like-minded people who were also concerned about the issues under discussion.

According to text from the CF website: The panel will see experts from film and creative industries debate with audiences at the festival about how co-production agreements and the cultural protocol of the regional Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union and Caribbean states can be used in practice, and what their limitations are . . . "Co-productions and other policy instruments in the audio-visual industry have the potential to bring about important benefits. However, filmmakers have yet to see any of the promised results," comments Jen Sobol, Programme Officer from the Commonwealth Foundation. "Even with new agreements in place, such as the UK/Jamaica treaty, there has been little tangible benefit to date for practitioners. This panel is a chance for individuals from government, civil society and practitioners to come together and discuss why this is, and how these tools can be better harnessed. "

There is no way I can do justice to everything that was said at the panel (nor do I wish to spend the rest of the night deciphering 15 pages of my hastily scribbled notes) so what what you have below are quotes or salient points raised by each of our speakers. 

Keron Niles. We need to find a way to ensure that there is digitization of our audio visual footage. [this comment made in reference to a horror story he told about a TV station taping over archival footage]. 

Even with a 80/20 ration of a supporting organisation or company, there has to be a way to raise that 20% at home. There are laws in place but what we need is to find a way forward.

Bruce Paddington. I would argue that we shouldn't rely heavily on formal co-productions when there are so many informal arrangements, which are very important. Take, for example, the film festival--we are a co-production, this year we have an informal arrangement with the Commonwealth Foundation and BFM. [Referring to films made with informal arrangements]: These types of arrangements seem to work and should not be overlooked. Yes, there are advantages to a formal arrangement: we get to access funding from developed nations and there is wider distribution but the disadvantage is that, inevitably, we end up having to make compromises as authorship is in question when someone is paying for most of the cost of making your film. Then, what you end up with is a film like One Love, which isn't a true representation of the Caribbean.

Mariel Brown [from the audience]. One of the questions is: Can we negotiate a fairer deal? For example, if the CF funds a series then there should be arrangement whereby each episode is broadcast in each country of the Commonwealth. Distribution is a major challenge for us but what would happen if the 50 countries in the Commonwealth pooled their resources?

Nadia Benton. Yes, there are grants and such available to filmmakers but some of them remain unaware of this information. Additionally, there is a lot of bureaucracy involved in the process of filling out documents, etc. Filmmakers are creative people not bureaucrats so the process of applying for grants and such needs to be amended so that it can support getting work out. Filmmakers need to be made aware of the various festivals and the opportunities available to them. Institutions need to act as conduits as institutions carry more weight than an individual filmmaker. It's not that filmmakers are illiterate and can't fill out forms, it's just that those forms are thick with trade language.

Tony Hall. Our home market is so small that we have to think about how we can maximise our local gains. I'm thinking of forming a citizen company to fund my films, you know, granny could give $100. It's a foot soldiery job but I think it could work. But I refuse to compromise on my films, and I won't be told what kind of film I should make or how people should talk in them. What people respond to isn't the words being said on screen per se, but the emotional interaction between human beings. I intend to make a movie that's so Trini that only people from a certain street in Trinidad would understand a particular reference.

Lincoln Price. Funding a film is a costly venture so what is the golden egg we're offering to local companies and oragnisations to fund our films? Tax breaks? They're not even offered in our own communities. We've settled our affairs outside and we've managed to secure certain arrangements but our domestic affairs are suffering--we haven't dealt with what we have to deal with. It's like attending to a stranger in your bedroom while you ignore your spouse. There needs to be an indigenous demand for our product but it seems a difficult task to convince people that our stories are worth telling.

Clyde McKenzie. We have to change the paradigm. We have to be creative and hound financial institutions and government to talk a more creative approach. We need our own. One solution is that the government could float a regional cultural fund. People could then invest funds that will be used for the cultural industry. At the CARICOM level there is information set up, but we need to revisit it. We need to create opportunities.

Carla Foderingham. We are not seeing enough of our own local content. We need to look at where we are strong. We need organisation and advocacy. In 1999 the TTFC set up a film desk and developed a strat plan that needs to be refreshed. But, since that time, we have brought in $32 - $34 million from location shoots, with the employment of some 3,000 local crew, but we seek to improve that. We need to adopt practices that make an impact and we need to use our cultural difference as a source of strength. We face a challenge with money and with fragmentation of the region and we struggle with questions of direction. We seem unwilling to support our local brand. Why?

--end of notes

I would like to note that the trinidad+tobago film festival documented the discussion on video and we'd like to find a way to transcribe this and other discussions sometime in the not-too-distant future so that they are readily available to those interested in accessing our growing archive.

A packed house takes in the panel at the Hotel Normandie

Keron Niles during his slideshow presentation

Carla Foderingham talks about TTFC's initiatives 

Jamaican producer Clyde McKenzie addresses issues of ownership

Filmmaker Mariel Brown has a word with ttff founding director, Bruce Paddington. BFM's Nadia Denton is in the background

Lincoln Price makes a point from the audience

Panel discussion: The future of co-productions in the Caribbean

Tomorrow (24 September) the Commonwealth Foundation in conjunction with the trinidad+tobago film festival will be hosting a discussion panel entitled The future of co-productions: what next for the Caribbean?

The panel will look at the recommendations coming out of an extensive Commonwealth Foundation report on film, The Bigger Picutre: A Way Forward for Film in the Commonwealth, including co-production treaties and the Cultural Protocol of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), and will discuss what opportunities these tools bring and what is required to ensure their potential is fully realised, as well as what their limitations are and what else is needed.

Participants will include Carla Foderingham of the Trinidad and Tobago Film Company, Bruce Paddington of the trinidad+tobago film festival, filmmaker Tony Hall of T&T, and Nadia Denton of the British filmmakers' collective BFM.

The panel takes place from 9am to 12.30pm at the Normandie Hotel, 10 Nook Ave, St Ann's, Port of Spain. There is no charge.

For more information, visit The Commonwealth Foundation website.

The Power of the Vagina hits MovieTowne

Producer Renee Pollonais addresses The Power of the Vagina

Last night, film festival patrons were treated to The Power of the Vagina, a documentary short that explores issues of women's sexuality. The film is comprised of interviews with various experts and people in the street, all of which prompted much hilarity in the theatre, as well as a few cringe-worthy moments. Absent at the screening was director, Jimmel Daniel, who is currently in London screening the film (to standing ovations) at the Portobello Film Festival. Present at the screening was producer Renee Pollonais, a third-year student in the UWI film programme, whose documentary short, Directions, won a People's Choice Award at last year's trinidad+tobago film festival. Bruce Paddington, our festival founding director, moderated an entertaining Q&A with Renee after the screening.

Not surprisingly, the first question was how the concept to make The Power of the Vagina came about. Renee explained that it was Jimmel's idea and that he was inspired by a Lady Saw video in which the Jamaican singer grabs her crotch, as per usual. So Jimmel approached Renee for some technical help (Renee has been in the media business for some 10 years), and the film was born. They started out by asking all sorts of people questions, and then looked for a common thread and built on that.

The second question dealt with reaction they received, especially on the street where Jimmel holds up a large "VAGINA" sign at the side of a busy road. Renee said that the director had been a bit nervous and that she had driven around with the sign in her trunk for weeks before he got up the courage to unveil in public. "I couldn't hold the vagina sign," she said. "That would have been another reaction altogether." At first, the sign received some weird looks; some people cheered while others asked, "Why not a "PENIS" sign?" But, overall, Renee and Jimmel were surprised at the reaction they received, as a lot of people had much to say.

When asked how we can get copies of the film, Renee replied that they are still trying to secure some copyright issues. Bruce then spoke briefly on the fact that it's great to see a student film paired in a screening with a professional Cuban film (Horn of Plenty) and that the BA in Film programme at UWI really works in providing such an opportunity for fledgling filmmakers.

One criticism received last night was that there should have been a wider cross-section of women speaking in the film, but, as Renee explained, their choice of subjects was a matter of convenience. Inevitably, the question of how much it took to make the film arose. Renee replied that, as a student at UWI, it cost nothing, really, as the equipment was free and she and Jimmel did everything together in a true collaboration. "Were there any problems between you and Jimmel working on a film of this nature," one patron wondered. "Yes," Renee replied. "But any issues we set aside. The film mattered enough to us not to go down that road. Things were relatively balanced. And, anytime there was an argument, I would take a time out to cool down a bit."

Renee then spoke about the overall experience of making a film noting that it's great that technology is such today that it's relatively easy for anyone to make a film, all that's needed, really, is a project that you're excited about. And, if you need technical help, you could always ask someone with experience for help. "But the thing that propels it most is passion."

Finally, from the back of the theatre came the inevitable question, asked, of course, by a man: "When will you make a movie about the almighty penis?" Renee laughed and said that it's being discussed. Bruce ended the Q&A with the quip: "That would be a hard movie to make."

A still from The Power of the Vagina, which will be shown again this Friday, September 25 at 11.00 pm at MovieTowne, POS, as part of a special late night screening of short films. It also plays again with Horn of Plenty on Thursday September 24, 8.00 pm at MovieTowne, POS and Sunday September 27, 5:30 pm at MovieTowne, Tobago. On Friday, 25 September it will be shown with Jacques Roumain and Racing Definitions at the Institute for Critical Thinking, UWI

The filmmakers' Q&A: Yao Ramesar

Robert Yao Ramesar of Trinidad and Tobago, director of Sistagod II


Robert Yao Ramesar is a Trinidad and Tobago filmmaker. His first feature film, Sistagod, screened at the trinidad+tobago film festival in 2006. This year his Festival entry is Sistagod II, which makes its world premiere tomorrow night at the Festival at MovieTowne, at 8.00pm.


What was the first film you remember seeing?

Born Free. When the Emperor Valley Zoo was looking for a home for two lion cubs, I desperately wanted to raise them, like in the movie. My mother taught me my first lesson about the difference between film and real life.


What was the most recent film you saw?

I just watched Talk to Me by my friend Kasi Lemmons, starring Don Cheadle. Kasi's direction is pitch-perfect in this one.


If a Martian came to earth and wanted to see a film, what film would you recommend?

I'd recommend anything by [Stanley] Kubrick, David Lynch or Tim Burton. The Martians might think twice about invading, sticking around or even befriending us.


Which filmmaker do you most admire?

The Ethiopian director Haile Gerima was my mentor and taught me filmmaking. It's great to open a book on the history of cinema and spot him on page 13 or see him picking up two of the major awards at the last Venice Film Festival. He's bad and still kicking ass.


What's the best piece of filmmaking advice you ever received?

“Make your films.” -- Haile Gerima


Have you ever walked out of a film screening?

Occasionally. I more sleep in the cinema. A lot of the time when I travel to festivals, I'm exhausted from making and moving my latest film and can't stay awake. I've slept through some really great movies. The loud snoring is the worst though.


What film have you seen more than any other?

Unfortunately, Sistagod II. It's reached a point where viewing it is oppressive and I have no objective idea of how it looks or sounds.


A viable Caribbean film industry: possible, or wishful thinking?

The Caribbean film industry and culture is--right now. There is no time like the
present. The future is now.


What advantage does filmmaking have over other art forms?

Film is a renaissance art. It incorporates many arts and can have its own autonomy.


Can cinema change the world?

Cinema can, has and will continue to change the world.

The TTFF kicks off in Tobago

A shot from Queen of the Brands, directed by Thomas Jemmerson of Trinidad and Tobago. Queen of the Brands is one of the films screening as part of the trinidad+tobago film festival/09 in Tobago


On Tuesday at 6.00pm the stars of The Ghost of Hing King Estate will be at MovieTowne in Lowlands for the official launch of the trinidad+tobago film festival/09 and the first screening of the film in Tobago.

Actresses Terri Bovell (who is from Tobago) and Cecilia Salazar will be in the company of Hing King's writer, Francis Escayg, when Tobago has its own cocktail reception to mark the occasion. The Ghost of Hing King Estate was directed by veteran filmmaker, Horace Ové, and is based on true events. The film is a supernatural thriller about mysterious deaths on an agricultural estate. Prior to these events, Hing King was a peaceful, scenic place, although not without its share of life’s usual dramas. Conflicts invoked by sex, lust, marriage, and betrayal grew as readily as the crops themselves, leading to situations at turns distressing and amusing. But in May 2006, as the deaths begin to occur, the relatively peaceful estate is forever changed. Carmelle, the plantation overseer’s wife, becomes vilified as people from nearby villages begin to suspect that she is responsible for the untimely deaths. Amidst mounting tensions, facades are broken down, relationships are tested, and friendships destroyed.

The Ghost of Hing King Estate is just one of the locally-made films screened during one week of the trinidad+tobago film festival in Tobago. Other local films include Queen of the Brands, the short film that opened the Trinidad launch of this year’s Festival, Sans Souci, which promises to be one of the Festival favourites, Coolie Pink and Green, about a young Indian girl growing up in the culturally multi-layered Trinidad and Tobago, and The Power of the Vagina, which got a standing ovation after its first screening in Trinidad. The five winning films from the Secondary Schools Short Film Competition will also be shown daily at 11.30pm during the one-week Festival in Tobago. Other daily screenings are at 5.30pm and 8.00pm.

Silent Light: Q&A at MovieTowne

Mexican director, Carlos Reygadas, talks about his film, Silent Light, after yesterday's screening at MovieTowne

Last night was the first festival screening of Silent Light, a critically acclaimed film from Mexican director Carlos Reygadas. Jonathan has already said much about this film in a previous post, so there's no real need for me to delve into it here, suffice to say we think it's brilliant. And, after last night's insightful Q&A with Reygadas at MovieTowne, we think he's pretty brilliant as well. (Warning . . . contains spoilers)

Why “Silent Light?” Why didn’t you use any artificial light? Well, there is some artificial light, like light bulbs in the houses. But I like the real light. I like to capture it.

Why didn’t you use a music track? The place sounded nice—I liked the sound of the place, the people and the animals. I don’t like it when music helps a narrative. I like things to be pure, direct, and raw.

What was it like working with the Mennonites? Their religion doesn’t permit images but I think some of them accepted me as they figured out I was interested in the real Mennonites. They speak their language in the film so, in a way, the movie is a document of their culture. They don’t produce music or books so the film fixes a moment of culture.

How come the wife didn’t die in the movie? Maybe she died—I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t come back. I don’t know. I rely on my vision, sort of like a hypnotic trance or my dreams. It’s not so much about telling a story as it is about sharing feelings and pure vision.

Why do you shoot in real time? I wanted to give time to look at the images and to listen. I gave each shot the time needed to really see it. I feel as though an earlier cut would mean the scene would be gone before it could exist in the proper time. I feel as though the entertainment standard doesn’t give you sufficient time. A person could go to a museum and look at a painting. Some would look at it for hours or weeks, even months, but most people just walk in front of it. I find that most of cinema these days is just illustrated literature and that shots are just tools used to tell a story. I believe in making what you’re looking at imperative instead of just a tool from the narrative . . . I guess that’s what happens to all of us, we’re trying to get back to a conceptual understanding, working back somehow. I guess that’s why some people use drugs and take medication—it’s an attempt to get back to feeling and touching.

You work with inexperienced actors. How did you choose your cast? It’s ideal for me to think of characters, not actors, but to focus on the cinematic language and framing dialogue. I went for a few years to the shops and fields and villages and searched for the faces that would be best for the film as they’re similar to the characters.

How did you make out with the language barrier? Yeah, I don’t speak German—well, maybe a word here and there but I told a translator what I wanted the actors to say and they said it. I have no idea if they actually said what I wanted, and I don’t care, really. They could have said, “I like popcorn” when I wanted them to say, “I want to go to the car.” No, really, it doesn’t matter what they say. The film was about constructing every best take, about capturing the energy felt, the breathing, rather than the specific words that were said.

Are there other directors whose work you admire, who you look to when making a film? No, mostly not, but I suppose that everyone is a product of where you are and what you’ve seen and what you’ve eaten—it’s all a part of what you are. But I guess in a way my film is like The Word, which is 1950s Danish film set in a religious society. But that happens around a miracle and, in my film, there is no miracle. It’s mostly about where I have lived and the places and people I see.

Not to be pragmatic but, in the film, is it possible that she didn’t actually die, that she was in a coma of some sort and the doctor was an idiot? Yes, there is a remote possibility. I guess in a way I was poking fun at the medical community. I have a skin problem and I’ve seen many doctors. They would say, “Well, it’s probably because of the pollution in Mexico City.” And I’d say, “I’ve lived out of Mexico City for years now.” And they would say, “Well, it’s probably too much pepper,” and I’d say, “I don’t eat pepper.” I guess it was a bit of sarcasm on my part. [Referring to the fact that, in the film, the doctor told a grieving widower that his rail-thin wife had died of a massive attack of the heart. When asked why that would happen, the doctor gave alcoholism and obesity and possible reasons.]

Why the long opening and closing sequences? I wouldn’t know. It’s not something concrete. I just wanted to capture the feeling of seeing dawn and dusk . . . To condense into seven minutes without time-lapse effect, to show power and to evoke real feeling in a film in minutes instead of a sped-up version. To get you into the world and then bring you out again. Going from large to small and then the opposite.

I noticed that the camera enters each scene straight on and meanders after the character. Yes, I never liked to shoot a face from an angle. I always like to look at a person on centre. In this film, the Mennonites ordered each shot—they demanded that position. It was an organic way of shooting. They are the centre of the photograph, everything existed for them to be captured. It was about getting the most out of people.

How has the film been received by the Mennonites? They are a conservative community; there were unusual challenges. A large part of the community doesn’t approve of the film. Not the subject, but that it’s anathema, as it’s a film. The sex scene with Johan [main character] took place in a motel not far from his house. His wife had a problem separating fiction and the film from reality, as this was a place so close to his home and it seemed too real. She came to me to complain and was angry but we spoke about it and in the end everything turned out alright.

In Battle in Heaven, you tied a string to the actors and would tug on it when you wanted them to move. Did you do the same thing in this film? The moments are created by actors themselves, there is a strict rhythm and timing. I don’t want to make it sound like they are puppets, it’s more about providing a cue. The actors bring their own presence and energy and their humanity in the end.

What is your next project? I don’t know yet. I’m taking a little break. I’m not the kind of director who has many screenplays and is just waiting for money. I need to feel the next film.

How did you finance Silent Light? With some Mexican funds for film, some German funds and some French funds. Also, some television sales to Arte, the Franco-German culture channel. But mainly from Mexican funds, about 60%.

What sort of feedback have you received for Silent Light? Some people have insulted me. Some have hugged me. Others couldn’t care less. But most people like it.

And it’s been in a couple festivals, hasn’t it? Yes, it’s done well in festivals and has won many awards. I’ve been lucky.

A two-part question: First, there is a very graphic sex scene at the beginning of Battle in Heaven. How did you shoot that? And second: do you have any plans to shoot a movie in Trinidad? There is a saying: With money, even dogs dance. Ok, no, I’m joking about that. The actress is just a very free person. We thought it was an important scene and she trusted me and she trusted the film. She’s very free; in a way I think she liked the idea of shocking people.

You didn’t use a prosthetic penis? No. In a film, if you eat an apple you eat a real apple. If someone dies in a film then of course you have to fake it as, well, the poor guy would suffer. But when you are doing fellatio, nothing happens to you, nothing goes wrong. I just didn’t see the point of using a prosthetic.

And the second part of the question? Well, maybe now that I’m here, if I ever had the impulse maybe. But I don’t have a program; I only respond to what I feel.

What was it like working with your wife as editor? Oh, it was very handy. She edits and then prepares food. No, I’m kidding, I cook most days. It’s great to be able to share that part of my life with her. But I don’t think it would have worked if she was on set. It’s important for us to work on our own. The editing took three months, that was a good time.

You shoot using a 1960s lens from Russia, is that right? Yes, and if the image appears a little blurry, it’s not because it’s not in focus. Lenses back then weren’t as sharp as they are today. I think video lenses today are too sharp, more so than the human eye, which is not that sharp. I find that HD images are like metal.

You came in at the end of the film. Is it frustrating for you to see it projected in different ways? Yes, well, of course, it’s better if it’s well projected. But a film has to live his or her own life. The first time it screened I was a little nervous as I wanted it to be perfect. But now I can’t think that way. I would only be suffering.

A scene from Silent Light, which will be shown again at MovieTowne, POS, on September 28 at 8.00 pm

The jury is in

Inside the judging room where the 09 festival jury decides which films will take home cash prizes. Clockwise from left: Tanja Meding, Carla Foderingham, BC Pires, Christine Punnett, and Bruce Paddington

At around noon today, I obnoxiously inserted myself into a room at the TTFC where a jury of five had been sitting for three hours (and would sit for two more) making weighty decisions as to which of this year's films will take home awards. 2009 marks the first year of the festival's two juried prizes (Best Film and Best Locally Made Film)—in past years, we have given out People's Choice Awards but, this year, sponsors have generously stepped up to provide cash prizes to those films and filmmakers of worth. Winners will be announced on Tuesday 29 September (scroll down for the list of prizes).

The 2009 jury is as follows: Bruce Paddington (trinidad+tobago film festival founding director), Hilton Als (who weighed in in absentia via written notes as he had to leave T&T unexpectedly this morning), Carla Foderingham (CEO of the Trinidad & Tobago Film Company), Tanja Meding (US-based independent documentary filmmaker), BC Pires (film critic and judge of the Caribbean Media Awards) and Christine Punnett (of the National Gas Company).

When I walked in, the jury was busy discussing a film that shall remain nameless as, according to Tanja, I was under embargo. I sat listening for a while, enjoying the debate and getting a little lost in the conversation until a break occurred and I got to ask a question or two.

My first was on the criteria for judging a film and how the jury decides which films are of merit. The answer didn't surprise: in general, they were looking for critical work that also shows a high level of technical skill. Speaking of the best local film, Carla said that they are "looking for something that resonates with a local audience but isn't so parochial that it can't be appreciated by all audiences."

I then asked how the experience has been and everyone chimed in saying that they enjoyed watching all the films. Carla spoke about the diverse pool of directors, from emerging to experienced. Bruce said that there had been "some close calls" in terms of the eventual winners chosen and that there were "special mentions and very special mentions." "The crop of films is very strong this year," he added. "It gives us hope for the future of the industry."

Carla then spoke of the important role that the trinidad+tobago film festival plays: "If we don't attend the festival, there's little chance of seeing these films as it's a struggle to show local films. There's a tremendous body of work in the Caribbean. If we don't get to see these films, we are poorer as a people." She then spoke about the fact that when filmmakers approach the majority of our local stations in an attempt to show their films, they are often told that they would have to pay for airtime, and cited the case of one director was told he could show his film for TT $32,000/hour.

Setting aside the negative, Carla ended on a high note: "Film is one of the ways to bring us together," she said. "We get to see ourselves in different ways and, through films, we break stereotypes. The thematic representations [in films] are critical for all of us to confront our realities. We're more alike than we know."

The trinidad+tobago film festival/09 is grateful for the generous sponsors of this year's prizes, which are as follows:

Best Film

This award recognises outstanding achievement in creating a feature film that reflects the Caribbean spirit. The winner will receive a prize of US $10,000. Sponsored by The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited.

Best Locally Made Film

This award recognises outstanding achievement by a filmmaker resident and working in T&T and carries a cash prize of TT $30,000. Sponsored by the Trinidad & Tobago Film Company

People's Choice Award: Best Dramatic Feature

Sponsored by Intercommercial Bank Limited and carries a cash prize of TT $5,000

People's Choice Award: Best Documentary

Sponsored by Trinidad Systems Limited and carries a cash prize of TT $5,000

People's Choice Award: Best Short Film

Sponsored by Agostini Insurance Brokers Limited and carries a cash prize of TT $5,000

The Ghost of Hing King Estate screens to a full house

Some of the cast and crew of The Ghost of Hing King Estate. From left: actor Michael Cherrie, writer/co-producer Francis Escayg, co-producer (and our festival programming director) Annabelle Alcazar, actor Wendell Manwarren, actress Teri Bovell, and actress Cecelia Salazar

Someone commented recently that it seems a shame that the trinidad+tobago film festival/09 isn't showing more films from T&T. We second that emotion but point to the fact that we are a yearly festival and there aren't that many local feature films produced each year (and also that our festival aims to show films of and by not just our country, but the region and the Diaspora). We are working steadily to support a fledgling T&T film industry and to help raise standards of local film and to provide a platform for viewing those films once they are made.

Last night was the first festival screening of director Horace Ové's film, The Ghost of Hing King Estate (preceded by the local short film, Mistaken). Judging by the fact that the screening was sold out, we suspect that people in T&T would like to see a few more local films as well. A drama based on a true story, The Ghost of Hing King Estate tells of mysterious deaths on a local estate, and was shot entirely on location in Trinidad & Tobago, using a local crew and actors. 

After the screening, some of the film's cast and crew answered a few questions. The first was of the challenges that were faced during the making of the film. Writer and Co-Producer Francis Escayg spoke of the difficulty of shooting for a mere five weeks during the rainy season. There were challenges getting the needed equipment, he noted, and also that they "needed to make pieces of art out of what they were given or not given by the corporate powers that be." He also spoke of what a pleasure it was to work with seasoned director, Horace Ové, as did actor Michael Cherrie.

Wendell Manwarren, of local rapso group, 3Canal, had one of the starring roles in the film and said that his biggest challenge was waking up at 3 am so he could be on set at 4 to start shooting. For actress Teri Bovell who played Cetty, the biggest challenge was getting over her nerves, as it was her "first time acting in anything." (She received a hearty round of applause after stating this.) On the other hand, veteran stage actress, Cecilia Salazar pointed to the fact that shooting out of sequence really threw her off, as, although she has done numerous plays, Hing King was her first movie. She speaks of arriving on set one day early in the shooting and being told that her death scene would be shot that day, as it was raining and, therefore, the perfect weather for that bit of drama. "I died before I shot anything else," she said.

Co-producer Annabelle Alcazar thanked the "fantastic young crew" who worked on the movie, including Oliver Milne, who, to date, has had a couple short films in the festival.

One question from the audience cleared up some confusion: the movie is set in 2006 but based on a true story. How is it, the questioner wondered, that he had never heard of these events, which seemed as though they would have been plastered all over the news. As it turns out, the events happened in 1971, but the decision was made to set the movie in this decade, as it is too expensive, not to mention difficult, to shoot period pieces in T&T.

Francis Escayg was asked why the movie hasn't been showed on local television. "We had a beautiful shoot and post-production," he said. "And then the pain stepped in afterwards." He is still waiting to hear back from the distribution powers that be.

The Ghost of Hing King Estate and the short film, Mistaken, will be screened again at MovieTowne Tobago on Sunday 27 September at 8.00 pm.

Mas Man director, Dalton Narine, has a word with actor Wendell Manwarren after the screening

Wendell Manwarren, Annabelle Alcazar, and Cecilia Salazar cozy up to the camera

Bury Your Mother at MovieTowne

Jaime Lee Loy of Trinidad and Tobago, director of the film Bury Your Mother


Experimental films aren't easy viewing. Unlike most films, experimental (or avant garde) films don't set out to do what conventional films do. Experimental films play with form, deliberately seeking to puzzle, confuse, perhaps even frustrate. And in their content they can disturb, offend, outrage. Needless to say, experimental films aren't for everyone. But for those looking for more from their film-going experience than the usual, who don't mind (or even desire) being asked to actively engage with what's on the screen rather than just sitting back and being entertained, there are filmmakers out there working at the margins, who continue to push the boundaries of what's possible in the art of film.

Jaime Lee Loy of Trinidad and Tobago is one such filmmaker, and her film Bury Your Mother, which premiered yesterday at the trinidad+tobago film festival, is a wonderful example of how a film can do more than just passively entertain. It is a challenging, thought-provoking work, a brave exploration of the troubled, stymied relationship between a mother and daughter; two women trapped in a house, trapped in memories, they can't or won't escape.

The film is also admirably well-made. Jaime--who is also an artist--did much of the work herself, from the haunting cinematography to the potent sound to the bravura editing. She admitted to me in the Q&A after the screening that the process of making the film was essentially organic; that she was trying things as she went along and going with what worked. (I found this a little surprising, as this is not Jaime's first film. In any case, her cinematic choices were for the most part extremely effective.) The film also benefited from the performances given by Alicia Guevara (the Mother) and Sabrina Charran (the Daughter); the former a work colleague of Jaime's, the latter an artist who worked with Jaime on her previous film.

The screening of Bury Your Mother was not exactly a sold-out one. Experimental films, event at film festivals, don't normally get huge crowds. But the people who do turn out for them are usually committed to the experience that they provide. And that was the case with Bury Your Mother, with members of the audience expressing just how moved they were by it. And you really can't ask more of a film than that, experimental or not.

Bury Your Mother screens again on 25 September at the Institute for Critical Thinking at the University of the West Indies St. Augustine, and on 28th September at MovieTowne.


Audience member Charlotte Elias engages with Jaime Lee Loy in the post-screening discussion

The filmmakers' Q&A: Carlos Reygadas

Carlos Reygadas of Mexico, director of Silent Light


This evening at 8.30 at MovieTowne, the Mexican film Silent Light will be screened, with its director Carlos Reygadas in attendance. The following Q&A gives a tantalising peek into the mind of one of contemporary world cinema's leading auteurs.


What was the first film you remember seeing?

Airport 77.


What was the last film you saw?

You the Living. At least the last I remember. Pure beauty.


If a Martian came to earth and asked to be shown a film, what film would you recommend?

Mother and Son, by Aleksandr Sokurov.


What's the best piece of filmmaking advice anyone's ever given you?

Work with people that share your feeling.


What's the worst piece of filmmaking advice anyone's ever given you?

A director should just think and order, not do anything else.


What film have you seen more times than any other?

The Innocent, by Luchino Visconti.


If you could go back in time and be a part of any period in cinema, what would it be?

Yesterday.


What's the biggest misconception people have about your films?

I don't know. Don't want to.


What's the most important thing you've learned about life from filmmaking?

To wait. And to never surrender.

Workshop: Alternative Marketing in the Digital Era

The attendees at the Alternative Marketing in the Digital Era workshop


In one of my previous posts I said that without an audience to watch them, there wouldn't be films in the first place. That might seem to be stating the obvious, but the fact is that many filmmakers are so focused on making their films that they often don't think about what comes after the film is finished. How do you get your film to its intended audience? How does it get seen?

In the established film industries, marketing and distribution aren't usually the filmmaker's concern. There are others whose job it is to engage in these tasks, leaving the filmmaker free to get on with the business of making his or her film. But when you're an independent filmmaker or in a fledgling market (or both), the task often falls on you to market and distribute your film yourself. Luckily, with the advent of the Internet, there are new tools at the filmmaker's disposal to help bring the film and the audience together. And yesterday's TTFF workshop at the Hotel Normandie saw a number of nascent and potential filmmakers come to learn how to tap the vast resource that is the World Wide Web. The workshop took the form of a panel presentation and discussion, followed by a Q&A session with the audience.

Leading the workshop were three individuals who come to marketing and distribution from quite different, but inter-related angles. Trinidadian Georgia Popplewell, who has been in the film and media industry for two decades, is a multimedia producer. Trinidad-born, Canada-based Frances-Anne Solomon is a well-established filmmaker. And Christopher Meir is a US academic based at the Film Programme of the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine here in Trinidad.

So, how do you get a film to an audience? First, the filmmaker has to decide who their audience is, and actively go after it--a film won't sell itself, however good it may be. "There's no shortage of films in this world," said Georgia."There's no reason for people to choose your film over another, unless you give them one."

Frances-Anne said that even before she began making her last feature, the TTFF-award-winning A Winter Tale, she thought about her primary, secondary and tertiary target audiences. Not that she allowed thoughts about her audience to dictate her filmmaking process, but she said she found that once the film was made and began to be screened, the audiences she had had in mind beforehand became the audiences who came to see the film.

Getting to the issue of the Internet, Georgia noted that potential audiences for films (and other works of art) have increased tremendously, and one can now reach markets across the globe in way that was not possible before. If you made a film about the Amerindian presence in Trinidad, for example, you could now potentially market your film to Aborigines in Australia.

Once you've worked out your potential target audience, the next step is to engage the tools to reach them. The panelists listed five websites key to any filmmaker in this endeavour: IMDb, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia and Twitter. The advantages (and disadvantages) of each site in managing your online presence and your personal brand was discussed. Everyone agreed the first four sites are indispensable, while the jury's still out on Twitter, the new kid on the block. Then Georgia mentioned the sixth key website: the filmmaker's own. "Buy your own domain name," she said more than once. Even if you have no real need for it now, you will in time.

But what about the old media? Are the old ways of marketing a film still useful? Of course. "Nothing beats great poster art," said Chris. And a well-edited trailer of your film is essential. But the best marketing tool for a film, said Chris, is the film itself. "No amount of websites can made a bad film good," he declared. Frances-Anne, however, begged to differ, saying (with some annoyance) that she had seen savvy marketing campaigns do wonders for poor films. But if that's the case, the reverse is also true. As Chris observed, "You can really kill a good film with bad marketing."

At the end of the day, however, as important as marketing is, it should not take over the entire filmmaking process. "We want the dog wagging the tail, not vice versa," said Chris. He did note, however, that the creativity a filmmaker puts into making a film can also go into marketing and distributing that film. And Frances-Anne made the point that, whatever way you decide to go in marketing your film, make sure you love it, because you're going to be using it constantly--before, during and after filming. Georgia picked up on this point, of the hard work and discipline needed to effectively get a film out to the world. "The Internet is not going to market your film for you," she said. "You still have to do that."


Georgia Popplewell and Christopher Meir


Frances-Anne Solomon

One Woman at StudioFilmClub

The programme for the three nights of screenings at SFC as part of the TTFF, curated by Hilton Als


Last evening, the three nights of screenings at StudioFilmClub curated by Hilton Als as part of the trinidad+tobago film festival/09 drew to a close, with a series of short films by the black US artist Kara Walker. In his introduction to the films, Als spoke of the way he came to Walker's art, and specifically these films, and about Walker herself (Als has written a profile of Walker in the New Yorker magazine; photocopies of the article were available at the screening). He spoke in a way that made me sense that for him, of the entire programme of films, Kara Walker's were the ones that meant the most to him, had the most personal resonance.

Walker's work, both filmic and non-, uses tableaux of paper cutouts or silhouettes to explore the issues of racism and slavery, issues that still plague US society. Though much of the work is literally in black and white, figuratively it is anything but, as Walker goes beyond the stereotypical and reductive black-is-good, white-is-bad notions that often inform such work and engages in a more nuanced critique of slavery and history and race relations. And with this thematic complexity comes moving images that are at once striking, disturbing, and as Melanie wrote previously, eerily beautiful.

Walker made her series of short films over a period of seven years, but last night, in an act of curatorial daring, Als showed them back-to-back over an intense period of around an hour. "It's hard to say I hope you like the films," Als said as he ended his introduction, "but I hope they're deeply enlightening and emotional." There were some among the audience who found the films perhaps too emotional (or maybe just offensive) and who left the screening, but most people sat utterly transfixed as haunting image after haunting image appeared on the screen: a large human head cum island swallowing black bodies whole; a man self-fellating; another man being sodomised and then giving birth.

There was also the presence of a recurring character called the Negress, a stand-in for the filmmaker herself--though Walker was also literally in the films, as her hands were often in view manipulating the cutouts, and in one ultra self-reflexive moment, when the camera moved behind the tableau to briefly show Walker and her collaborators at work. No unseen narrator here: this is work rooted in reality and personal experience.

"One of the ways we get to be good adults is not to varnish history," Als said at the end of the screenings. In other words, we must always strive to tell the truth. And speaking true about our human reality and experience is one of the aims of the trinidad+tobago film festival. In sharing Kara Walker's--and Kalup Linzy's, and Leslie Thornton's, and Robrt Altman's--films with us, Hilton Als has helped us in this mission. For that, we give him our thanks.


Peter Doig, co-founder of SFC, introduces Hilton Als


Artist Embah plays one of his creations at the party after the screening


Artist Tessa Alexander, left, and academic Gabrielle Hosein at the after-party


Hilton Als and my co-blogger Melanie Archer (with Shelley Duvall in the background)

The first filmmakers' panel

The filmmakers' panel: Dalton Narine, from left, Francesca Hawkins, Francis Escayg, Bruce Paddington, Ida Does and Vero Bollow


Passion. If one word could serve as the keyword for this morning's filmmakers' panel at Chaud restaurant in Port of Spain, that would be it. If you're a filmmaker making independent or non-mainstream films--in Trinidad and Tobago, the wider Caribbean, and really, just about anywhere outside of the major film production areas in the world--you've got to have passion for what you do, or the obstacles you will inevitably face will ensure you never get your film made.

That seemed to be the consensus of the five filmmakers on the panel (as well as panel chair Bruce Paddington, TTFF Director) and most, if not all of the audience. Each filmmaker had his or her own horror story to tell of the difficulties in getting their film made, from raising funding for production to being able to market their film effectively to getting a proper distribution deal.

But it wasn't all gloom and doom. The fact that there was a panel at all (and will be another one next week) is testament to the tenacity and resourcefulness of the filmmakers who were more than willing to share with the audience and each other how they went about getting their films made. They all acknowledged that the process starts with the passion for telling stories; as the Netherlands-based Surinamese documentary filmmaker Ida Does said, "I can only make a film when I sense it very deeply."

"My passion is to tell our stories," said Francis Eascayg, writer of the script for the Trinidad and Tobago film The Ghost of Hing King Estate. "If we don't tell our stories we will lose the essence of our identity." Vero Bollow expressed a similar sentiment. Her film, The Wind and the Water, was made with the people of the Kuna tribe of Panama. "The Kuna like to tell their own stories," she said, noting that she worked in such a way that allowed for the Kuna to really make the film, while she and the professional crew essentially only provided technical guidance.

Bollow's film is perhaps different from those of the other filmmakers who were on the panel in that it was also a development project in aid of the Kuna people, which helped her get access to funding. (When she said this, a member of the audience who works with the Youth Training Centre noted that the boys of the YTC are very interested in making their own film. Perhaps, as I noted in my last post, the model for making The Wind and the Water could work for them.)

Ida Does also had a somewhat different story when it came to getting funding for her film, Trefossa. Working out of the Netherlands, she was able to get a state grant for 100% of the funding. It also helped that her subject is a major national icon in Suriname. And Francesca Hawkins made her film, Sans Souci, as a student project at the Film Programme at the University of the West Indies, which gave her free access to equipment and expertise.

Dalton Narine's story, however, was one of an almost constant search for funding over the five-year production period of his film, Mas Man--and the film is still not fully finished. Even though the subject of the film, Peter Minshall, is one of this country's greatest artists, sourcing local funding proved almost impossible. In the end Narine had to finance much of the film himself. "I emptied out my pension fund," he admitted.

Francesca Hawkins, who though she is relatively new to filmmaking has worked in the local media for many years, declared, "I wouldn't be so foolish to look in the Trini market for funding." She noted that the lack of a large-enough homogeneous audience means that only small, specialised film projects seem to get funding, and that corporate sponsors only want to sponsor projects that will give their products prominence. At this point Bruce Paddington jumped in to "speak a few words in defence of the Trinidad and Tobago Film Company," noting that the Film Company does provide seed funding for film projects, but is unfortunately unable to give more than that. Audience member Chris Meir, lecturer in film at UWI, made the suggestion that one way of securing funding was through co-productions with such entities as the BBC and CBC of Canada.

Vero Bollow also noted that having generous funding to secure proper equipment perhaps wasn't as important as having the right people working with you: "Much more important than your equipment are the people manipulating that equipment." At the end of the day, she said, what matters is the film itself, and getting it made. Make it on a cellphone, project it on a piece of paper in a park for the public to see, and you never know what could happen from there--you could start a whole new film movement.

Bollow's advice might seem naive, or at best wildly optimistic, but is it? The point she makes is that if you wait until you've got all the funding you need, you will never get started. Start, and go on from there. But you have to have the passion. If you don't, you're doomed before you even begin.


The audience at the filmmaker's panel


Audience members Michael Mooledhar, filmmaker, and Georgia Popplewell, multimedia producer

**Schedule update: Special Screenings**

Dear friends of the festival, we're happy to announce the following special screenings, which are not on our website or our printed materials. Please note that our 11.00 film on Saturday night has strong adult content. We hope you'll make a note of these screenings and come out to watch a few great films, perhaps even have a beer on us and meet a filmmaker or two. 

TODAY Friday 18 September

11.00 pm BASHMENT

A cautionary tale about friendship, greed and redemption, Bashment addresses the many complexities and pitfalls that Jamaican and Caribbean immigrants face on the quest for that all too often elusive 'American Dream’. When Cymbal (Mykal Fax) and his friends, Job (Steve McAlpin), Tubby (Shawn Cummings) and Rupert (Narada Campbell) linkup with Son-Son (Nohard Grant) an incorrigible bad boy who believes that choice is an illusion, and that the gun is the only thing that matters, they find themselves dealing with more drama than they are willing to take on.

MovieTowne

Saturday 19 September

11.00 pm BATTLE IN HEAVEN

A working-class man named Marcos and his wife kidnap a baby for ransom money, but it goes tragically wrong when the infant dies. In another world is Ana, the daughter of the general for whom he drives, who does sexual acts to any man for pleasure. Marcos confesses his guilt to her in his troubled search for relief, and then finds himself on his knees amid the multitude of believers moving slowly toward the Basilica in honor of the Lady of Guadalupe. --synopsis from imdb.com, check our FB site for the trailer.

MovieTowne

Director Carlos Reygadas present

Sunday 20 September

5.30 pm RUDO Y CURSI*

Two brothers from a rural Mexican village are playing in a local football match. Tato (Gael Garcia) is the star striker and Beto (Diego Luna) is the eccentric goalkeeper. A talent scout spots them and offers one of them the opportunity to go to the Capital and try out for one of the country’s big teams. They decide to settle it on a penalty shoot out. Tato scores the penalty against his brother and heads off to Mexico City where he has a slow start but finally makes it big and earns the nickname 'Cursi'. His brother soon follows and joins a rival team where he is given the nickname 'Rudo'. Cursi becomes a national hero and starts dating a famous model whilst his brother struggles with life in the City and misses his family back home. Soon things start falling apart for both brothers. Tato loses his goal-scoring touch and his woman, and his brother gets lured into a world of cocaine and gambling. In one fateful match the brothers come face to face. Cursi is threatened with demotion to Division 2 if he fails to score and Rudo must throw the match in order to settle his gambling debts. How will it end?

MovieTowne

*This film is part of a special Focus on Mexico night. Vouchers for Corona beer courtesy the Mexican Embassy will be given out so you can have a beer and relax after Rudo and before the 8.00 pm screening of Silent Light

See you there!

Sans Souci and The Wind and the Water at MovieTowne

Filmmakers Francesca Hawkins of Trinidad and Tobago, left, and Vero Bollow of Panama


Films are made by collaboration. Sometimes, they are also made by a collective. That's the case with the two films that screened last night at MovieTowne, Sans Souci from Trinidad and Tobago, and The Wind and the Water, out of Panama.

In the typical filmmaking process, many people work together, each with a specially designated role: director, editor, production designer, what have you. When a film is made collectively, however, roles overlap; individuals do more than one task, and often tasks are shared. Sans Souci was made in this manner, as director Francesa Hawkins explained to the audience after the screening.

Sans Souci is a short film (but not a short short: the running time is almost 30 minutes) made by the current graduating class of the Film Programme of the University of the West Indies, a drama about a group of friends riven by differences in opinion around the 9/11 attacks, then brought back together under tragic circumstances. All of the action of the film takes place at a house at Sans Souci (a house owned by official TTFF artist Eddie Bowen), on Trinidad's north coast, the beautiful, isolated location becoming a crucible for the characters, their emotional experiences there contrasting sharply with the name of the place (sans souci, without a care or worry).

Shot in an intense three-and-a-half days, Sans Souci film had no written script but was improvised by the cast and crew working together. Much of what else is in the film was improvised as well: the visual motif involving a cobo, for example, was not predetermined, but worked into the film as shooting took place. And of course, as usually obtains on student productions, many of the tasks behind the camera were shared. The film's music score, however, was composed and performed by one person, Jason Dasent. As Francesca explained, Dasent, who is unsighted, composed the score by listening to the film's diegetic audio: the dialogue of the characters, the sound effects and the ambient sound--the wind, the crashing waves.

The Wind and the Water, a feature-length narrative film, was also made by a collective, but under rather different circumstances. It was made by Vero Bollow with the Igar Yala Collective, which comprises mainly young people (working with their elders) from the indigenous Kuna tribe of Panama. The film tells two stories. One is of the Kuna people's engagement with the outiside world, their struggles with maintaining tradition while also seeking to embrace modernity. The film is also the story of Machi and Rosy, two young people from the Kuna tribe. Their stories are contrasting ones: Machi, raised among his people on a group of islands, goes to Panama City to attend school and see what, if anything, life holds for him there; Rosy, born and raised in Panama City, goes to the islands for the first time when her grandfather passes away. Along the way Machi and Rosy cross paths, and a touching, subtly delineated friendship blossoms.

Working with technical experts from outside the tribe, the Kuna who helped make the film learned the process of filmmaking as the production went along. As an example of how this worked, Vero said that the young man who played the character of Machi also edited the scenes showing his character's childhood. (Incidentally, all of the main Kuna characters were played by non-professional actors, and in most cases gave wonderfully naturalistic and under-stated performances.) She also noted that the themes and issues dealt with in the film--development, tradition vs modernity, the lack of opportunity for the marginalisation of the indigenous peoples in Panama--reflect quite strongly the actual situation facing theses peoples in contemporary Panama.

Loath to take credit for much of the film herself, Vero almost incidentally noted that The Wind and the Water (Burwa dii ebo in Kuna) is the first feature film to come out of Panama. It is interesting to note that this film was made by a collective. Perhaps collective filmmaking--as opposed to standard collaborative filmmaking--could become a successful mode of filmmaking in other places where the film industry is also developing, not least of all here in Trinidad and Tobago.


Francesca Hawkins and Bruce Paddington, TTFF Director


Vero Bollow


Members of the audience taking in the post-screenings Q&A session

Two Women . . . Sort of at StudioFilmClub

US film critic and New Yorker staff writer, Hilton Als, shares a laugh with StudioFilmClub co-founder, Peter Doig

One of the questions Jonathan and I have been sending out in our Q&As to directors is this: Can filmmaking change the world? The responses to this question have been varied. Yes. No. It already has. Driving home tonight I found my own answer: Perhaps filmmaking can't change the world, per se, but it can certainly alter one person's perception of it. Sometimes there is a film that is so singularly disturbing, beautiful, thought- and range-of-emotions-provoking that the universe around us, literally and figuratively, looks different after we see it. Perhaps you have a mental list of these films; I know I do. And tonight, I add one more, Peggy and Fred in Hell, which was screened as part of StudioFilmClub's second in a four-night programme for the trinidad+tobago film festival/09.

The first week of this year's StudioFilmClub programme is curated by US writer and film critic, Hilton Als, who arrived in Trinidad today and was present tonight for the second of four nights of film club screenings. In his pre-show chat he apolgised that he couldn't get here earlier, and then gave a brief explanation for his choice of films and his overarching focus on women--that, on screen, he finds women more interesting to look at than men. (Hilton's three SFC nights are called "Three Women," "Two Women . . . Sort of" and "One Woman.") He also pointed to a common thread in the films that he chose, that they all in some way address themes of transformation, identity, and repulsion.

First to be screened was the work of Kalup Linzy, an artist who spent a lot of time looking at soap operas with his grandmother who raised him. Linzy's three short films lived up to my expectations--they made up a raucous and hilarious ride of assorted Southern female characters (the filmmaker voices them all himself and plays a number of characters in drag).

For some present, the transition from Linzy's films to the screening of the visually dense, dark and disturbing Peggy and Fred in Hell was difficult. Hilton seemed to know that this would be the case--before the screening he urged patrons to get up during the film, go grab a drink, and come back, noting that he never sits through the entire work. I took his advice but was drawn quickly back to the film, which features a couple of children--the last surviving people on earth. The movie switches between archival footage of historical moments and natural disasters to scenes of Peggy and Fred moving through a vast world devoid of humans but filled with objects of a material and media-heavy age. Their behaviour is strange and hypnotic and varies throughout; in some scenes they appear to be playing house, in others they dance or sing for a stretch, in one they are engaged in a fist-fight. Director Leslie Thornton started making the film some 20 years ago but is supposedly now "finished." For the time being, at least. 

After the screening, Hilton said of Peggy and Fred, "It's a difficult work, I know, but it's important to see it and other challenging works so that we can reorient our brains to the world around us." 

Mission accomplished.

Next on the StudioFilmClub agenda is the screening of Kara Walker's short films, an hour-long programme that takes place this Friday, September 18, at 8.15 pm, with an after-party to follow. Admission is free.

A still from Leslie Thornton's Peggy and Fred in Hell

The crowd gathers around the bar. No surprise there!

Studiofilmclub co-founder, Che Lovelace, before the screening

Dalton Narine on Minshall and the Making of Mas Man

Dalton Narine, director of Mas Man is interviewed in the lobby of MovieTowne earlier today, after the screening of his film

At 3.00 p.m. today, when most of Trinidad was busy picking up kids from school or impatiently eyeing the clock willing the end of the workday to arrive sooner, a decent group of roughly 60-something people gathered at MovieTowne to take in the screening of Mas Man--a film on the work of Peter Minshall. We speculate that the good attendance was prompted not only by people's desire to see and hear the notoriously mercurial Minshall caught on film, but also by director Dalton Narine, a guest of the festival who is in town and was present in the theatre for the screening of his film and to answer a few questions after.

But before we could take in Minshall and Narine and a whole host of recorded characters in between, we were treated to Suck Meh Soucouyant, Suck Meh--a short film by UWI graduate, Oyetayo Ojoade. After the screening, Bruce Paddington, festival director, gave Ojoade kudos for completing the film while still at UWI. Ojoade, in turn, acknowledged that there are elements of the film that he would still like to work on. He then addressed the audience directly: "If you give me the funding needed, I promise I'll finish the film."

Narine was up next and answered the first question on how long it took to make the film. "Five years," he answered, "Working with Minshall and unearthing all the facets of an artist who digs deep into his soul and pulls out the devils and angels." Narine then quipped that, with the material left over, he could write three novels and have some left over. He also spoke about the fact that getting archival footage of Minshall's bands proved to be a problem, as the government of T&T had "spirited away" 1st generational footage, which meant that he had to clean up 2nd generational footage which, of course, is less preferable.

Another patron posed a question to Narine: "You took a risk in the film by addressing Minshall's race, why didn't you also take a risk and address his sexuality?" A buzz and shuffling in the crowd, and the Narine answered by saying that there are only 87 minutes of film and 26/27 bands to cover (all of which he couldn't cover due to time constraints) and that he didn't want to waste any valuable time on something that had little to nothing to do with the essence of Minshall as an artist.

And then the question that everyone was waiting for (whether they knew it or not): What was Minshall's reaction to the film? Narine informed us that, at first, people at the T&T Art Society warned him not to show Minshall the film, as that would be equal to the kiss of death. Narine ignored this advice and showed it to him anyway and Minshall took it well enough and had a few reasonable editorial suggestions and corrections. Narine made these but then, after the film was screened privately at NALIS earlier this year, there was "hell to pay," according to the director. He spoke of the difference in looking at work in an isolated environment rather than when you're surrounded by people; that the latter situation allows one to recognise his or her own shortcomings. Minshall hasn't spoken to him Since Carnival Sunday. "Is that why he's not here at the screening?" someone else asked. "I think so," Narine replied.

The last thing Narine spoke of was the need to document local individuals of merit and that there exist no films on Cipriani, Butler, Crawford, Williams, and a host of other, noteworthy people who have, in some way, contributed to our islands. Narine is pioneering in his documentation of Minshall, and he spoke of the need for fledgling filmmakers to pick up the mantle of telling our own stories.

If you missed Narine and Ojoade today, have no fear, they will be present at the second screening of Suck Meh Soucouyant and Mas Man, which takes place at MovieTowne Trinidad next Tuesday, September 22 at 3.00 p.m.

Director Oyetayo Ojoade speaks while the credits roll

Narine and festival intern, Celeste Doig have a quick chat after the screening

Festival founding director, Bruce Paddington, talks with Narine about the film (and other festival matters, no doubt!)

The crowd checks out some festival merchandise after the screening

The Filmmakers' Q&A: Vero Bollow

Vero Bollow, director of The Wind and the Water, from Panama


Originally from the US, Vero Bollow lives and works in Panama. Vero is the director of The Wind and the Water, and she will be at the screening of the film tonight at 8.30 at MovieTowne.


What's the first film you remember seeing?

Amadeus.


What was the last film you saw?

The Visitor.


Which filmmaker do you admire most?

I admire the films more than the individual filmmakers, but if I had to point to one person in particular, I would mention George Lucas for having created something entirely on his own terms, yet that is very mainstream.


When was the last time you cried during a film?

I usually cry during films.


Who would play you in the film of your life?

Myself!


What's the best piece of filmmaking advice anyone's ever given you?

Finish your film.


What's the worst piece of filmmaking advice anyone's ever given you?

That you should wait until all the financing is there to believe in a project.


What is the most important thing you've learned about life from filmmaking?

Every story is valid.


What's the biggest misconception that people have about making films?

That documentaries are necessarily more "real" than fictional films.


Can filmmaking change the world?

It already has.

3 Women at StudioFilmClub

Photo of Shelley Duval from Robert Altman's 3 Women, on the wall at StudioFilmClub


The late Robert Altman claimed that 3 Women came to him in a dream. It must have been a very strange dream, because the film is a strange, unsettling one. Loosely based on Ingmar Bergman's Persona, his classic study of two women in a tense, emotionally and psychologically vampiric relationship, 3 Women adds one more woman and a hazy, California-desert feel--as well as some off-kilter humour--to the mix. The film looks at the idea of multiple selves and the taking on of different personae, and as it progresses, each woman, at first with her own clearly defined individual identity, at different times assumes different aspects of the other women's characters until finally they become some less-than-holy female trinity, three persons in one.

At least, that's (partly) my take on it, from seeing the film for the first time at StudioFilmclub in Laventille last night, the first of four nights of screenings there as part of the TTFF09. The screenings are curated by US writer and critic Hilton Als, who will be at StudioFilmClub tonight for the second evening of screenings, which includes Leslie Thornton's experimental feature-length film, Peggy and Fred in Hell.

Last night's screening was not only the first night of screenings at SFC as part of the TTFF, but also the debut of a new HD projector, which, along with the recently-acquired cinema speakers (one from an old cinema in Trinidad, another from a cinema in Germany) and a Blu-Ray DVD player, will take the audio-visual experience at StudioFilmClub--which has been showing a mix of mainstream and independent, English and non-English language films for some five years now--to an exciting new level.

Also fairly new at SFC is the stand-alone bar area, where patrons last night limed before and after the film screening.


The screening area of SFC, with a Maya Deren film being shown on the new HD projector before the main screening


Artist Peter Doig, one of the founders of StudioFilmClub


Three men: artist Mario Lewis, from left, and journalists Sterling Henderson and Andre Bagoo


The audience liming after the screening


Glenroy (aka artist Chris Ofili), SFC's resident barman and maker of a mean vodka & tonic

Ida Does at the TTFF

Ida Does interacts with students of the Film Programme at the University of the West Indies


I ended my last blog post by saying that it was time for the real business of the Film Festival, the film-watching, to begin. I begin this post, however, not by discussing a film screening, but a lecture. This morning, Surinamese filmmaker Ida Does, director of the moving biographical documentary Trefossa, got a chance to interact with students of the Film Programme at the University of the West Indies at St Augustine.

Ida met with second-year students of the BA in Film Programme, showing her film and discussing with them the art of documentary filmmaking. Among the issues that came up was the importance of access by filmmakers to archive material. In Ida's case, for her film about the late Surinamese poet Trefossa (Henri de Ziel), much film material from Suriname's history was available to her from archives in the Netherlands. The UWI students spoke of the lack of similar material here in Trinidad and Tobago, and in cases where the material did exist, the difficulty in getting access. This led to a discussion about the need for filmmakers in such situations to become creative and the different methods documentarians can employ to achieve their goals.

Other issues discussed included effective ways to conduct documentary interviews, and the importance of having a crew--in particular a cinematographer--who not only knows completely what he or she is doing but is also sympathetic towards your vision.

After the talk about Trefossa in the morning, in the afternoon was the screening of Trefossa at MovieTowne. Among the audience were persons from the Dutch embassy, and at least one person from Suriname, who spoke movingly about how this intimate portrait of the man who popularised Suriname's nation-language (Sranan) and who helped inspire a generation to seek srefidensi (the Sranan word for independence, coined by Trefossa), had touched her. It was then left to Film Festival Director Bruce Paddington to note that were it not for the Festival, we here in T&T would perhaps never have heard about Trefossa and his exploits.

Trefossa screens again at the TTFF on the 27th at 1pm at MovieTowne.


Ida Does and Bruce Paddington

The gala opening

A view of the crowd at the cocktail reception at MovieTowne for the opening of the trinidad+tobago film festival/09


The months of preparation are at an end, and the moment we've been anticipating is finally here. Last evening, the fourth annual trinidad+tobago film festival kicked off with a cocktail reception, the opening films and an after party.

The reception and screening of the opening films took place at MovieTowne in Port of Spain, the home of the Film Festival since its inception. Filmmakers, artists, members of the media, state officials, members of the diplomatic service and others turned out in their hundreds for the gala event. After drinks and hors d'oeuvres, the guests made their way into the theatre where Bruce Paddington, Festival Director, Rhea Yawching of presenting sponsors Flow, Ralph Maraj of the Trinidad and Tobago Film Company (and the star of Trinidad and Tobago's greatest feature film), Mariano Browne, Minister of Trade and Industry, and Derek Chin, owner of MovieTowne, all made speeches. (Minister Brown also presented flowers to directors Maria Govan and Thomas Jemmerson.)

Once the speeches were at an end it was time for the films. Maria Govan's feature, Rain, out of the Bahamas, made its T&T premiere, followed by local filmmaker (and student at the UWI Film Programme) Thomas Jemmerson's short Queen of the Brands. (The screenings weren't actually meant to be in that order--one unfortunate consequence of which was that many people left the theatre before the short was shown).

Watching Rain, Maria Govan's debut film, a second time, and for the first time on the big screen, I must admit to seeing more of its shortcomings than I did the first time around. But its faults aside--and Govan spoke to some of these faults herself in the Q&A I did with her--Rain remains a fine achievement, a powerful realist Caribbean drama, with some outstanding performances from its main actors. And I really liked Thomas Jemmerson's style in Queen of the Brands. Here is a young Trini filmmaker bursting with talent and ideas; a name to look out for.

Once the films were over, we all trooped out of MovieTowne and made our way across to Zen nightclub where we drank and ate some more, and limed and danced till the wee hours. (Well, not all of us. Some of us had to cut short our evening to get a decent night's rest to be up early to write about last night's events.)

So we've opened with a shebang, and can now get on to the real business of the Film Festival--watching films. And there are a lot of them to watch, so there's not a moment to lose....


Bruce Paddington being interviewed by Mairoon Ali of Gayelle TV


Peter Ray Blood, Features Editor of the Trinidad Guardian, and Judy Raymond, Editor of Caribbean Beat magazine


Musician Isaac Blackman, whose hit song "To the Ceiling" is featured on the soundtrack of Rain


Mariano Browne


Ralph Maraj


The fabulous Emilie Upczak, the T&T Film Festival's Creative Director

The filmmakers' Q&A: Maria Govan

Maria Govan of the Bahamas, director of Rain

This evening is the opening night gala of the trinidad+tobago film festival/09. One of the films being screened is Rain, directed by Maria Govan of the Bahamas. Here we present an in-depth, illuminating Q&A with Ms. Govan about the movies of her childhood, the vagaries of the filmmaking process, and the highly emotional experience of shooting her first feature film.


What's the first film you remember seeing?

I am not sure whether it was Mary Poppins or The Wizard of Oz, as I have very early memories of each. They are each my favorites of all time!


What was the last film you saw?

District 9.


What matters more, having the proper budget, or having complete creative freedom?

I honestly think they are both very important in that one impacts the other. Having creative freedom was my experience on Rain but when we ran out of money on many occasions it was a very heavy weight to carry and ultimately impacted what happened creatively. I think incredible pieces of work can happen with very little money but I also feel that it is important to have the budget needed to manifest and honour the vision that one has in mind.

Which filmmaker do you admire most?

That is a very difficult question. Hmm.... I will say this, [Pedro] Almodovar is someone I am appreciating at this moment as I think about my next film. I am drawing inspiration from his work as it lives in the same world and spirit as the film that I am now writing.


What film have you seen more than any other?

I will say it, even though it may not be the coolest response. When I was young we watched The Sound of Music oh...a hundred times possibly. My mother was a huge fan of musicals and so I have seen them all, inside and out.


What's the best piece of filmmaking advice anyone's ever given you?

As I sit and ponder what story to tell next, having been through a tough year where distribution has been really awful for smaller independent films like ours, my thinking about what is marketable is often tangled in my creative process more than I would like. My producer Nate the other day said something very simple that resonated with me. He reminded me that we really have no idea what will sell because everything is changing all the time and the market is truly a mystery in many ways, so thinking from the end will not serve the work. He reminded me to simply tell the story that I would want to see most myself, and that is all that one can do--create from one's own personal place. That very simple reminder was helpful in taking some of the pressure off and freeing up the creative spirit.


If you had a chance to make Rain over, would you do anything differently?

I would do so many things differently, yes. The full answer to that question, however, is so complex that I could honestly write a book. I learned so very much along the way and truly feel that I will be a very different filmmaker on the next one.

A few very simple things that I would have done differently on Rain, as examples, are the following. I would have consolidated our locations better. We had over forty locations to film in twenty-two days. We moved sometimes three times a day which is really stupid when time equals money and both were limited. I would have insisted that we rehearse more. I had next-to-no rehearsals with a number of people who had no acting experience whatsoever. I would have taken longer with casting as casting is everything. If someone utters only a word in a scene that person needs to be really incredible, even in the smallest of moments. Having one person fail a scene can destroy it entirely. We went into production without having certain really important roles cast and that was devastating. I wanted to push the start date back as a result, but was fought by someone on my team who insisted that we begin filming as planned. It was a mistake that cost us a great deal in retrospect. I could go on and on and get into more complex answers but for now I will leave you with those few important and simple things.


What's the biggest misconception people have about making films?

I think people often try to impose formulas as to how to make work, find money and begin the journey as a filmmaker. I can remember when I left Los Angeles to return home to Nassau many of my friends said, "You will never make films if you leave L.A., especially if you go home." Ironically I feel it would have been the opposite. Had I not listened to myself and stayed in L.A I would have likely been stuck in production, never having made the step to being a creative agent in the work. I think the best advise I can give, and this is really cliché in some ways and can be applied to many things, is that one must listen to one's own inner voice and trust that. There is no formula whatsoever to making creative work; in fact I find the path is often crooked and bumpy and off-road sometimes in thick bush, so my best advise is to pack light and be ready for what may turn out to be a steep and rugged climb. Most things worth doing will be challenging, they will surprise us and require us to stretch in ways that we may never have anticipated but passing through that kind of threshold is such a gift--as the view is almost always magnificent on the other side.


A viable Caribbean film industry: possible, or wishful thinking?

Of course it's viable! The region is so rich with story and magic and colour--so much that is so inspiring and so moving. I can say that there are a number of Bahamians now making really strong work and so if we, as a very small country can contribute to the global platform of cinema in the important way that we are in this moment in time, I have complete faith that as a region there are truly great things ahead!


What is the most important thing you've learned about life from filmmaking?

I have been so humbled by the experience of making Rain in that there is so much yet to learn. It was like climbing a very steep cliff. I fell a number of times and had to pick my weary and broken self up. Too often I wondered if the film would ever be finished, as we kept running out of money along the way. I will say this though, as in life, nothing stays the same, and this was my experience on Rain. When I felt most hopeless and like giving up, something shifted and I was a little closer to the end. God gave me just enough to take the next small step and when one led to the next, the mountain became shorter, one phone call, one email, one moment at a time. If you keep on keeping on, you will survive the climb no matter how hard it may be along the way. It is that simple. Tenacity and focus sometimes go a lot further than even raw talent and creative vision. As Rain unfolds in front of me on the big screen, more than anything that I have achieved creatively, I am most proud that I stuck with it and saw it through to the end. That for me is the greatest achievement of all. I now have a wealth of knowledge and insight, a far thicker skin and a film that is traveling the world to boot!

The filmmakers' Q&A: Lawrence Coke

From the other side of the pond comes this quick Q&A with British director, Lawrence Coke. Lawrence has been making films since 1997; his first film, the feature-length mini-DV offering MC, was loosely based on Romeo and Juliet. His award-winning films include Melvin: Portrait of a Player (2003), Morally Speaking (2005) and One Day at a Time (2006), all of which will be screened at the trinidad+tobago film festival/09. Lawrence will be present at all screenings, thanks to our partnership with bfm in the UK

What was the first film you remember seeing? 

Star Wars

 

What was the last great film you saw? 

Let the Right One In and before that the Lives of Others

 

Which matters more: having the proper budget or having complete creative freedom? 

Having complete freedom

 

What is the most important thing you've learned about life from filmmaking? 

Nothing is what it seems 

 

If a Martian came to Earth and asked to be shown a film, what film would you recommend? 

Schindlers List (shows the best and worst of humanity)

 

What's the best piece of filmmaking advice anyone's ever given you?

When you’re absolutely certain you’ve cut enough, cut some more.

 

What's the biggest misconception people have about making films? 

Being talented is enough

 

What film have you seen more than any other? 

Toss up between Blazing Saddles and Dune

Which is more challenging: making a feature-length film or a short?

Making a feature

 

If you could go back in time and be a part of any era in the history of cinema, which would it be? 

Late 70s early 80s, before cinema became self aware

The Filmmakers' Q&A: Adoor Gopalakrishnan

Adoor Gopalakrishnan of India, the director of Four Women


And the Q&As keep coming. This time we feature India's Adoor Gopalakrishnan, who will be at the Festival on 25 September for the screening of his feature-length narrative film Four Women. Hailing from Kerala, Gopalakrishnan made his first film in 1965, and is one of India's leading filmmakers. He holds the title Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (France), and was honoured with India’s Dada Saheb Phalke Award, for a lifetime’s achievement in cinema, in 2006.


What's the first film you remember seeing?

I can’t exactly remember the very first film that I saw, but I vaguely remember having seen the very first talkie made in my language, Malayalam. The title of which was, Balan.


What was the last film you saw?

White Ribbon, this year’s Palme d'Or winner at Cannes, made by Michael Hanneke. This was at the Munich film festival where my last film, A Climate for Crime, was screened. I was not particularly impressed.


Which filmmaker do you admire most?

There are many filmmakers I admire, both Indian and foreign. Among the Indian directors are Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen.


What film have you seen more than any other?

Pather Panchali by Satyajit Ray; because it was one of the texts at the Film Institute where I had studied.


Are Hindi musicals (i.e. the films of Bollywood) worth considering seriously, or are they just frivolous spectacles?

Some are interesting and well worth studying.


What's the most important thing you've learned about life from filmmaking?

If you go along the current and the conventional, you have a smooth sail. Once you swim against it, you are in for a lot of trouble.


If you hadn't been a filmmaker, what career would you have chosen?

That of a theatre person. I was already writing, acting and producing plays when I joined the film school.


What advice would you give a young person thinking of a career as a filmmaker?

He or she should not look for any advice from others.


Can a film change the world?

Maybe in a hundred years.

Filmmaker present: Ida Does, director of Trefossa

Ida Does, director of the documentary Trefossa


Ida Does is the director of the documentary Trefossa, about the Surinamese writer Henri de Ziel (Trefossa). Ms. Does will be present at the screening of the film at MovieTowne on the opening day of the Festival, Wednesday 16 September, at 3:00pm. Below is a short synopsis of the film.

Trefossa (Henri de Ziel, 1916 – 1975) was a Surinamese neo-romantic poet. He wrote primarily about the beauty of his native country, and did so, famously, in Sranan, Suriname’s colloquial language that was considered “Negro-speak” and banned from schools’ curricula in favour of Dutch. Among other accomplishments, Trefossa is known for his work Trotji, a collection of 19 poems that proved influential to generations of Surinamese writers and for writing Sranan stanzas of Suriname’s national anthem in the mid-1940s.

This intimate documentary, through interviews with Trefossa’s colleagues, family, and former students, creates a compelling picture of a somewhat enigmatic man, one of the most important figures in the history of modern Suriname.

The filmmakers' Q&A: Dalton Narine

Award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker, Dalton Narine, provides a few great answers to our questions about film and life. Trinidad-born Narine will be here for the festival, and will be present at the screening of Mas Man, his documentary on the work of Peter Minshall

What was the first film you remember seeing?

It had to be a Western, because growing up Behind the Bridge we needed escapism. But I can't put my finger on the name of the film. Bad guys and good guys, that was it. No popcorn; just the lines, which some of us learned by heart. I always stuck with the good character, though. I almost became a priest, would you believe? 

What was the last great film you saw?

The Hurt Locker, a movie about a US demolition team in Iraq. I cried throughout the film, so realistic was the tension of combat, which was akin to my experience in Vietnam. Best of all, it was produced by a woman. And she had the scenes and frontline lingo down pat. Then I saw Inglourious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino and he supplied comic relief with a satirical take on WWII.

Which matters more: having the proper budget or having complete creative freedom?

Creative freedom. Once, I almost walked out of a production meeting just so I could have my way. But it wasn't easy or pretty, the bargaining. Then the production house tried to spite me by sabotaging the work, taking out huge chunks of dialogue and even the score. I got many calls from friends when it was aired. They just couldn't put the name and the garbage together. It didn't make sense. Now, I'm particular about who I work with.   

What is the most important thing you've learned about life from filmmaking? 

That it's just like life. All the elements are there. That's why there's no shortage of spoofs about filmmaking, the latest being Tropic Thunder. A year ago, I saw a three-hour documentary about Hollywood on PBS. It was produced by Richard Schickel, a venerated documentary filmmaker and Time magazine movie reviewer. Maybe that's why indies (independent films) are in vogue.

  

If a Martian came to Earth and asked to be shown a film, what film would you recommend?

Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It'll be all about communication in the next world we colonize (if we don't blow up our own little ball over who've got the biggest nukes by then). It'd be like, 'Here's a film we made about trying to reach you, because we knew there was other life in the vastness of the universe.' 

 

What's the worst piece of filmmaking advice anyone's ever given you?

Too many takes. They don't call me One More Dalton for any old reason. When I watch my work, I cringe sometimes, for there's always at least one shot I wish I could've redone. It happened in Mas Man. But I've gotten over it already. It's not life and death, no matter what experts think.

Which filmmaker do you admire most?

Stanley Kubrick. What's not to like? Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey; A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. They all work for me, particularly Clockwork Orange.

What film have you seen more than any other?

A toss-up among The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West (I'm a Sergio Leone fan, too), Platoon, Apocalypse Now and The Godfather (I and II). It's all about story, and Francis Ford Coppola, like Oliver Stone, tells a good yarn. Of course, Apocalypse Now was redacted from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. But I grew up on art house movies when I moved to the States, and the eerie material along with memorable lines, like 'I love the smell of napam in the morning,' work for me, even though napalm was the most potent/lethal weapon (outside of Agent Orange) we've used against the enemy in the American War in Vietnam – which is what the so-called deterrent to Communist expansion should be called.

A viable Caribbean film industry: possible, or pie in the sky?

It MUST happen. The seeds are being propagated this very instant. I'm writing a novel, but I might swing it arouund to a screenplay with Trinidad as partial backdrop.

Who is the most memorable person you've interviewed for a documentary?

A tie. Peter Minshall and Luis Camnitzer, a Uruguayan professor/artist/art critic, who lives in New York. One knows what he's doing, the other knows what he's saying.  

Personal Pick: Silent Light

Thou shalt not: Marianne (Maria Pankratz) and Johan (Cornelio Wall) are lovers in an adulterous affair in Silent Light, directed by Carlos Reygadas of Mexico


This is the film I've been the most eager to write about, and the most apprehensive. Eager, because I think it is the best film being shown at the trinidad+tobago film festival (not counting the classic Pather Panchali); apprehensive, because I don't know if I can write about the film in a way that truly conveys its particular brilliance. Still, I'll do my best.

On the simplest level Silent Light is the story of an eternal triangle. Johan is married to Esther, with whom he has five children. Johan is having an affair, however, with Marianne. Johan loves his wife sincerely, but he loves Marianne, too. Although he cares deeply for his wife and family, he wonders if Marianne isn't the woman he is truly meant to be with--if she isn't, to use the hackneyed term, his soul mate. What will Johan do? Remain with his family, and break things off with Marianne, or leave Esther and be with Marianne instead?

Of course, Silent Light isn't just about a married man having an affair, just as all great films aren't just about whatever the story happens to be. There are other elements at work. Silent Light is set in the Christian Mennonite community of northern Mexico. The Mennonites are a tightly knit, deeply religious and traditional community of German-descended people, somewhat like the Amish. They are family-centred people, do not strive particularly for material gain, and follow the Bible and its admonitions with particular strictness.

Set against this backdrop, Johan's dilemma takes on a new, deeper dimension. He knows, strictly speaking, that his affair with Marianne is a sin, and is open about his wrongdoing--Esther has been aware of the affair almost from the beginning. But his love for Marianne is so great, the relationship not only physically, but even spiritually fulfilling, that he cannot truly think of the affair as wrong. When he asks his father, a preacher, for advice on the matter, his father says what is happening is the work of The Enemy. Johan's response is that he thinks it is the work of God.

Time will prove which one of them is right, but this film is not really concerned with how things turn out in a conventional sense, which of the women Johan ends up with. Director Carlos Reygadas is more interested in presenting us with the experience that Johan goes through, his metaphysical journey, in arriving at his decision. More than that, he wants to evoke feelings in the film's viewers, but not strictly in the conventional way, not through plot manipulation--there really is no plot to speak of--but mostly through the film's visual, aural and acting style.

Reygadas seeks to achieve this in a number of ways. One is through the use of non-professional actors who give de-dramatised performances. Another is by the absence of a musical score (though there is music in the film, used to great effect), which heightens the film's sound. The film's design--its mise en scène--is spare, uncluttered. The camera style is of course key as well: there are long takes--the film's opening and closing scenes are each single shots lasting some five minutes--intense close-ups and panoramic wide shots, all wonderfully integrated. And the film's pacing is deliberately slow and measured.

To the viewer used to dramatic action coming thick and fast and lots of "acting", this sort of film style can be off-putting. But get into its world and stick with it for the just-over two hour duration, and Silent Light repays you for your patience. The ending is one of the most luminous, transcendent and beautiful you could ever hope to see in a film, even as you ponder and puzzle over its mystifying, miraculous nature.

Ultimately, I think Silent Light achieves that rare goal of being not just a great work of art, but also being more than a film. It is some kind of sublime visual poem or hymn, and it touches and moves the part of us that the religious would call the soul. I don't normally issue instructions in my reviews, but I'm making an exception in this case. Please, go see this film.

The filmmakers' Q&A: Mariel Brown

T&T filmmaker Mariel Brown won the people's choice award at the 2007 trinidad+tobago film festival for The Insatiable Season, her documenetary about mas man Brian MacFarlane's Carnival presentation Threads of Joy. This year Mariel returns to the Festival with a portrait of jeweller Barbara Jardine, The Solitary Alchemist. In this Q&A the director discusses, among other things, why documentaries are superior to narrative films, the best filmmaking advice she's ever gotten, and Meryl Streep.


What was the first film you remember seeing?

The first five minutes of Star Wars when I was about four, at Roxy cinema.


When was the last time you cried during a film?

I cry all the time at the movies--the last time was in that film My Sister's Keeper with Abigail Breslin and Cameron Diaz. But I all-out bawled when Meryl Streep sang "The Winner Takes it all" in Mamma Mia!


What matters more, having the proper budget, or having complete creative control over your films?

For me, it's having complete creative control. It's too heart-breaking otherwise. Studios can wreck your life and hold on to your film without explanation. This has happened to a friend of mine and I see how horrendous an experience it is. Although it's stressful raising the money yourself, at the end of the day, the film is mine, and I know I'll do the best by it that I possibly can. I suppose it helps that I'm not particularly interested in making those flash, big-budget films. I think I'm more likely to be able to raise the money for my own productions because the budgets aren't over the top.


Who would play you in the film of your life?

That's hilarious! Meryl Streep would be my pick! (But she's always my pick!)


What can documentaries do that fiction films can't?

Documentaries take you into a real event or situation, with real people. In a way, there's no need for that suspension of disbelief, as the experience ought to be absolutely truthful. The more documentaries I watch, the more I think the form superior to narrative films. Because they are, in so far as it's possible to achieve, the truth, without fabrication. To me, they take someone closer to the human experience than a narrative film.


What's the best piece of filmmaking advice anyone's ever given you?

Don't show the film to too many people while you're making it. Also, make sure your lens is clean, the horizon is correct, exposure is good, and shot in focus. Also, it doesn't matter if I can't explain to a crew why I want what I want. It's enough that I want it.


What film have you seen more than any other?

What Remains: The life and Work of Sally Mann, and probably Singing in the Rain.


What's the most important thing you've learned about life from filmmaking?

To trust my own instincts--stop questioning all the time. Also, there's something wonderful in imperfection--something utterly human that is beautiful and correct.


What's the biggest misconception people have about making films?

In Trinidad, the biggest misconception is that making a film will make you rich and that filmmakers are just trying to take advantage of everyone. (This is particularly rampant at Carnival time.) We do this work in Trinidad purely out of love for what we do--because believe me, it's not going to make anyone rich here anytime soon.


A viable Caribbean film industry: possible, or just wishful thinking?

It's most definitely possible--but it needs private sector, government and audience support.


Can filmmaking change the world?

I don't think so--but it can certainly change one person's perception of an event, or a person, which is enough for me.

The filmmakers' Q&A: Jaime Lee Loy

Bury Your Mother director and artist, Jaime Lee Loy answers questions about a Martian, her first, her most recent, tears, and time travel (all related to film, of course!). Get to know a rising star a bit better in this second installment of our filmmakers' Q&A series.

What was the first film you remember seeing?

The Omen. I was seven.

What is the most recent film you saw?

District 9. Excellent Movie.

Have you ever cried during a film and, if so, which was the last one?

I cry more for films than for real life. I don't cry easily but good films get me. I cried for District 9 actually – not a sob – a few tears.

If a Martian came to Earth and asked to be shown a film, which would you recommend?

I would show them Grave of the Fireflies – it's an animation done in Japan I think. It's a war story through the eyes of two children. It manages to show both the beauty and horror of human nature in little ways.

Which matters more: having the proper budget or having complete creative freedom?

Complete Creative Freedom.

If you could go back in time and be a part of any era in the history of cinema, which would it be?

I would stay here now. I work in experimental video and opportunities and freedom to explore this is at its peak today.

What's the best piece of filmmaking advice anyone's ever given you?

That filmmaking and/or video is really just visual communication. Once you connect or communicate what you are trying to do successfully you have a good film/video. This helps keep you focused.

What film have you seen more than any other?

What Dreams May Come

What specific qualities can a fine artist bring to film?

Experimentation and re-emphasis of the visual element – hopefully a commitment to pushing the boundaries of the visual image – of the frame.

Is there a future for locally-made films?

Yes. Once support continues. It depends on the people though – if more filmmakers/video makers pursue it.

Personal Pick: Rain

A shot from Rain, written and directed by Maria Govan of the Bahamas


Rain is a coming-of-age story. The coming-of-age film is a well-established sub-genre of drama; it's been around for a good half of the history of cinema, certainly ever since François Truffaut so memorably captured childhood's end through his young autobiographical protagonist Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows (1959). So as a coming of age film Rain isn't exactly original. It is, however, a Caribbean coming-of-age film (and a very good one), and that makes all the difference.

Coming-of-age stories seem to me to be a Caribbean specialty. Why that is so is open to debate (metaphor for the West Indian territories shaking off colonial rule and becoming independent, perhaps), but whatever the reason, survey the literature and you'll find coming-of-age novels aplenty--George Lamming's In the Castle of My Skin, Zee Edgell's Beka Lamb, Patrick Chamoiseau's Childhood, Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John, Geoffrey Drayton's Christopher, Merle Hodge's Crick Crack, Monkey and For the Life of Laetitia, Joseph Zobel's Black Shack Alley.

This last novel, of course, was made into a film, one of the great Caribbean films, by the Martiniquan director Euzhan Palcy in 1983. It could be argued that there hasn't been a comparable Caribbean film since. Well, I think that Rain, the debut feature film by Maria Govan of the Bahamas, might be as good as Black Shack Alley; its contemporary equivalent.

The story: young Rain lives with her grandmother on one of the tiny outlying islands of the Bahamas, in an existence that could be called idyllic. When the grandmother dies, Rain heads to the capital, Nassau, to live with her mother, Glory. Glory, to put it mildly, won't be winning any mother of the year contests very soon. She abandoned Rain when the girl was a baby (there is no mention of Rain's father), and time hasn't changed her feelings towards motherhood--while she isn't exactly resentful at having to take up parenting duties, she certainly doesn't welcome Rain with open arms.

Glory lives in a small shack in a depressed area. We don't exactly know what she does for a living, but with the different men who keep coming around, we can hazard a guess. She's also a gambler and, worse, a junkie. She also might have Aids. Is there any hope for Rain? Of course there is, and that hope comes in the form of school. Not through academic studies, the traditional route of escape in these stories, but sport. Rain has a talent for sprinting, a talent that the school's track coach, a Trinidadian, notices and decides to nurture. Rain, it seems, might almost literally outrun her fate.

Taken as is, Rain might appear to be a film ripe with cliché, melodrama and syrupy sentiment. Yet it is not. Rain is decidedly restrained and unsentimental, in plot, style, and acting. Yes, the film deals with "issues"--parenthood, drugs, Aids, homosexuality, religious hypocrisy--but it is not a film about issues, it does not preach or wax self-righteously. And yes, there is much inherently dramatic material involved, but Maria Govan's skill and assurance as a director (though Rain is her first feature, she has a number of documentaries under her belt), her interest in rounded, three-dimensional characters, her refusal to tack on a standard happy ending, and the wonderfully naturalistic performances keep the film from boiling over.

These performances, from a mix of professional and non-professional actors (Renel Brown, who plays the title character, had never acted before making Rain), the great use of actual locations in the film's shooting, the film's concern with telling a "real" story about ordinary folk--all these things make Rain, in a way, a film in the great neorealist tradition. This, to me, could point a way to the future for Caribbean filmmaking. With limited budgets, access to studios and professional acting talent, making Caribbean neorealist films--where perfect production values don't count as much as gritty authenticity--might be where our filmmakers could decide to go, as with similar filmmaking movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

This is not to say that Rain does not have good production values--the production values are excellent. The film was made for around one million US dollars, which is nothing in Hollywood terms (though for a Caribbean filmmaker that's admittedly quite a lot of money). You could make an excellent feature film, a film that tells a story about real people and real lives, and relies on solid storytelling and characterisation and not whiz-bang car chases and explosions, for not exorbitant sums of money. The question is whether or not our audiences, bred on Hollywood, want to see such films, and our directors, often no less influenced by Tinsel Town, want to make them. (There are other issues too, of course, including ones related to funding and distribution and so on.)

Of course, every filmmaker should make the films that he or she wants to make. I'm just glad that Maria Govan decided to make Rain, the way she made it. From what I've heard, it's been playing to packed audiences in the Bahamas. I dearly hope it gets released Caribbean-wide; I think it will do well. It certainly deserves to.

The filmmakers' Q&A: Adam Low

Documentary filmmaker Adam Low of the United Kingdom


You already know who's coming to the trinidad+tobago film festival/09. Now get to know a little bit more about our guests, with this series of filmmakers' Q&As. We begin with British documentary filmmaker Adam Low, who will be here for the screening of his documentary about famed Indian director Satyajit Ray, The Cinema of Satyajit Ray. Last year, Low was here for the screening of a documentary he made about VS Naipaul.


What was the first film you remember seeing?

South Pacific.


What was the most recent film you saw?

District 9.


What can documentaries do that fiction films cannot?

Show you the real world.


Have you ever walked out of a film screening?

Many times--for example, Oliver Stone's Platoon.


What's the best piece of filmmaking advice anyone's ever given you?

"Remember it's only a film."


What's the worst piece of filmmaking advice anyone's ever given you?

"Everything cuts together."


What film have you seen more than any other?

The Seven Samurai.


If you could go back in time and be a part of any particular period in cinema, what would it be?

The 1950s.


Have you ever cried during a film?

Of course--mainly in animal movies.


Can filmmaking change the world?

It can always try.

When artists make films

A video still from artist Kara Walker's 2005 work, 8 Possible Beginnings . . . 

What distinguishes a film that's categorised as an "art film" from a film or video made by an artist? My personal answer: Who the hell cares, just as long as it's good! This post highlights a few noteworthy, artist-made films that will be screened at the trinidad+tobago film festival/09. If, like me, you have a particular interest in the fine arts and experimentalism, then I suggest that you mark you calendars and be sure to catch the following:

Five Kara Walker short films at StudioFilmClub, September 18. In 2007, Time magazine named Walker one of the USA's 100 most influential artists. An MFA RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) graduate, Walker won the MacArthur "genius" award in 1997—one of the youngest people ever to do so—for her body of work that centered around themes of race and gender roles. Using life sized cutouts, Walker spins difficult to swallow and often vexing tales of slavery and an antebellum south, many of which are centered around the Negress, a sort of alter ego of the artist. In 2004, she took her large-as-life silhouettes off the gallery wall and into a different medium when she directed her first film, Testimony: Narrative of a Negress Burdened by Good Intentions. Walker's work is challenging; it is rooted in the history of slavery and often mixes sexuality into already confusing and dismaying situations, with an eerie beauty that is difficult to define.

And if eerie beauty is your cup of tea, then don't miss the (September 17 at StudioFilmClub) screening of Peggy and Fred in Hell, directed by avant-garde artist Leslie Thornton. The film centers around the two last beings on earth—a pre-adolescent girl and boy (yes, Peggy and Fred). Together, the duo makes its way through a surreal, quasi-apocalyptic world that is bursting at the seams with the detritus of pop culture. Comprised of footage Thornton shot herself and archival footage, this experimental, semi-sci-fi film bravely challenges and beautifully explores the aesthetics of narrative form. One of the most interesting things about this process-oriented film is that it is comprised of a cycle of ongoing and ever-changing short films; Thornton has been making Peggy and Fred since the early 1980s and, chances are, the version of the feature-length film that will be screened at this year's festival will not be last version the artist puts together.

Coming from Trinidad and Tobago is Jaime Lee Loy's film, Bury Your Mother, which is a haunting, non-linear narrative depicting a psychological engagement between a mother and her daughter. Through a range of techniques, we see the interaction (or lack thereof) between a mother, who clearly has some screws loose, and her daughter, who rarely makes it onto the screen. Lee Loy's images read almost as a series of well-thought-out photographs, with special attention paid to cinematography and the use of symbolism to craft a tale, whether through costuming, objects, or actions.

Also on the film/art picks list is Kalup Linzy's series of short films, which will also be screened at StudioFilmClub. Linzy—an MFA graduate and 2007 winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship—is a performance artist and filmmaker who often performs in drag in order to reinvent classic Soap Opera story lines, but with black women as the central characters. I won't go into too much detail here, as I already wrote about Linzy's films in a previous post, suffice to say, that one critic describes his work as "Faulker by way of Tyler Perry." 

So, does art really imitate life? Judging from these films, we'd say yes.

Personal pick: Sita Sings the Blues

"Oh my gods!": Lord Rama can't believe his eyes in this shot from Sita Sings the Blues, written, directed and animated by Nina Paley of the USA


Over 60 films are set to be screened at the trinidad+tobago film festival/09. While we believe they are all good films, there are a handful that we, individually and for different reasons, have a particular fondness for and think are worthy or remark. Here is my take on Sita Sings the Blues; the first in a series of posts on personal picks, favourite films from some of us at the Festival. Please remember that our opinions on these films are just that--only our opinions (but we'd like to think that they count for something anyway).

"It's just a cartoon," someone said to me the other day, of Sita Sings the Blues. His remark served as reminder of the view that many people still have concerning animated films: as good as some of them might be, they're just not in the same league as live-action films.

I beg to differ. A good film is a good film, regardless of style or genre or mode of filmmaking. A good animated film is better than a bad live-action one. (The best Hollywood film I've seen this year is Up, a truly breathtaking cinematic experience.)

Sita Sings the Blues, the first feature-length animated film to be shown at the TTFF, is also a great cinematic experience. It seamlessly weaves together multiple storylines, each told using a distinctly different style of animation, and also brilliantly incorporates music and narration. The film is partly based on the ancient Hindu mythological epic poem, the Ramayana (pronounced "ramine"), attributed to the poet Valmiki. In Trinidad, the Ramayana is dramatised every year in the run-up to Divali celebrations as the Ramleela, and tells the story of how Lord Rama of Ayodhya was banished from his kingdom, along with his wife Sita, to live in the forest for fourteen years. While there, Sita is kidnapped by the evil King Ravana, who takes her back to his island fortress of Lanka. With the help of Hanuman, the monkey god, Rama goes to Lanka, kills Ravan, and takes Sita back.

This is where the Ramleela ends--Sita and Rama are reunited, and a massive effigy of Ravana is burned. That's not where the Ramayana ends, however. Having rescued Sita, Rama now refuses to have anything to do with her. As she has lived in another man's house, Rama has doubts over Sita's honour, and she is made to undergo a trial by fire to prove her purity. Even after this Rama remains unconvinced, and when Sita tells him she is pregnant, he has her banished to the forest.

Using a beautiful painterly style of animation, Sita Sings the Blues dramatises all these events with a humorous, lightly irreverent touch. Adding further comedy and a critical undertone to the story are three boisterous and unreliable shadow puppets as narrators. Like a malformed Greek chorus, they pop up now and again to comment and give their often ill-informed opinion on what is going on. Thus Sita gently makes the point that religious texts and stories are not meant to be swallowed unthinkingly or taken literally, but should be wrestled with, studied, questioned. In doing so the film subverts the epic somewhat; while Rama is the glorious hero of the Ramayana, it is Sita who takes precedence in this feminised, even feminist retelling.

Then there are the songs. Interspersed throughout the film are musical numbers, torch songs from the 1920s by the late jazz singer Annette Hanshaw. As "sung" by the Sita character, Hanshaw's songs take on a wonderful new life, and help to dramatise Sita's plight further.

Finally, giving the film even more depth and resonance is another, contemporary storyline, involving an American woman named Nina (yes, the film's director is an American woman named Nina--the story is unabashedly autobiographical, and Nina Paley even provides the voice for the character of Nina). Nina lives with her husband in San Francisco. When he is offered a job in India, she is left behind, but then goes out to join him after a few months. She finds him cold, distant. Then when Nina goes to New York on a business trip, she gets an email from the husband--he's breaking up with her. Their relationship is over.

The echoes and parallels between Nina's and Sita's stories become increasingly evident as the film goes on, and we begin to realise that the film is not just a funny version of an old religious story with a few songs thrown in, but a moving exploration of love and loss, of picking up the pieces and moving on after one's heart has been broken. These are universal, eternal themes, and there will never be an end to the stories that dramatise them. If only they could all be as touching, as funny, as amazing as this film.