regional focus

African cinema

Continuing the ttff's heritage initiative, which began last year with a focus on the cinema of India, the Festival is this year focusing on African cinema. Indigenous African cinema has mushroomed in recent years. The success of such films as Tsotsi and District 9, and the phenomenon of Nollywood (the Nigerian film industry, the second largest in the world in terms of production), has put Africa on the world cinema map as never before.

The Festival will be showing a number of recent feature-length narrative and documentary films from Africa, as well as short films. Many of these will be films from the Zanzibar International Film Festival with which the ttff has formed a partnership and exchange, through an initiative facilitated by the Commonwealth Foundation. As a part of the initiative, the festival is pleased to host Ms Wanuri Kahiu, a talented Kenyan director who will be showing a feature length documentary and her most recent narrative short African science fiction film. In addition, the ttff will be hosting the director of the Zanzibar International Film Festival, Martin Mhando who will also sit on the ttff jury awards committee.

Brazilian cinema

Trinidad & Tobago and Brasil share similar histories of conquest and colonialism; as a result, we have cultural and religious similarities, and are joined through other connections. This year the ttff will present, in association with the Embassy of the Federative Republic of Brasil, a showcase of Brasilian cinema.

The Festival is pleased to be welcoming one of Brasil’s foremost directors, Daniela Thomas, and will be hosting a mini-retrospective of her work. Whilst in Trinidad, she will be leading a workshop on directing feature length films and there will be screenings of her work at Studio Film Club, the Brasilian Embassy and Movie Towne, POS all with Director’s Q&A. Apart from Ms Thomas’ narrative features, the Festival will be screening a feature-length Brasilian documentary that won the audience choice award at Sundance ‘Wasteland’ and a classic Brasilian short ‘ Ilha das Flores’.

Flow’s video on demand

In 2008 and 2009, our presenting sponsor Flow provided a platform for some of the most popular films of the trinidad+tobago film festival by making them available on Flow pay-per-view channels in the months preceding and following the festival.

Flow remains committed to the growth of the local film industry and this year's launch of its Video on Demand service will create opportunities for further the collaboration. This initiative provides Flow customers with a unique and diverse collection of local films, and ensures that Festival 2010 receives additional awareness and recognition, while rewarding filmmakers with 100% of all proceeds earned during the viewing period.

Flow On Demand is a service from your cable provider that lets you, the viewer, select what you want to watch from a large library of movies, music and television shows, at any time you desire. Flow On Demand also gives you the ability to pause, rewind, fast forward or even stop a Flow On Demand title that is currently playing and return to it whenever you like and either continue from where you left off or start from the beginning, once the title is still within its “viewing window,” which is 24 hours from the initial purchase.

Check www.flowtrinidad.com for more details

Tobago

We are very pleased to bring community screenings to Tobago for the first time, in partnership with the Tobago House of Assembly’s (THA) Divisions of Tourism and Transportation and Community Development and Culture. This is the latest in a series of initiatives by the ttff to widen the reach of the Festival, as well as help develop Tobagonian talent in filmmaking.

This partnership demonstrates both the Festival and THA’s commitment to bringing films from the Caribbean region and the Diaspora to communities who would have historically not had access to films of this nature. Each screening will be preceded by a seminar for communities on potential careers in filmmaking. The Tobago programme will also include a music video workshop, one full week of film screenings at Movie Towne and director’s Q&A’s.

The community screenings are supported by North Eleven and will take place at the centres in L'Anse Fourmi, Les Couteaux and Mt St George from October 1 to 3. In addition to the actual film screenings, each event will include local food and craft offerings.