Nneka Luke, ex­ter­nal re­la­tions di­rec­tor at the T&T Film Fes­ti­val (TTFF), re­cent­ly rep­re­sent­ed the TTFF at the world fa­mous Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. In Cannes, Luke met rep­re­sen­ta­tives from oth­er Caribbean film bod­ies and she wrote this piece for the Screen Dai­ly web­site on why Cannes showed there are rea­sons to be cheer­ful in the Caribbean.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Guade­loupe,Mar­tinique, T&T, Ja­maica, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and Cu­ba brought the blaz­ing Caribbean sun to the Croisette for the 68th edi­tion of the Cannes In­ter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val.

In the last ten years, ef­forts to es­tab­lish more for­malised film in­dus­tries in sev­er­al Caribbean coun­tries have been gath­er­ing steam.

How? Through the cre­ation of pro­duc­tion in­cen­tives and ac­tiv­i­ty to at­tract for­eign pro­duc­tions (T&T, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Guade­loupe, The Ba­hamas); the es­tab­lish­ment or re­vival of film fes­ti­vals (T&T, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Ba­hamas, Cu­ra�ao, Aru­ba, with new fes­ti­vals in Ja­maica and St Lu­cia in 2015); the cre­ation of film de­grees and work­shops; and through the sheer will of tal­ent­ed Caribbean film­mak­ers to cre­ate in­ter­est­ing work with lim­it­ed sup­port.

While Cu­ba has been light-years ahead – host­ing the largest and old­est film fes­ti­val in the Caribbean through the Ha­vana In­ter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val and al­ready putting Cuban film on the world map – oth­er coun­tries in the re­gion have suf­fered from many hin­drances to progress.

But there are signs that the Caribbean is con­sol­i­dat­ing for greater suc­cess in the fu­ture.

The T&T Film Fes­ti­val (TTFF) pro­vides a plat­form for the de­vel­op­ment of Caribbean and di­as­po­ra film­mak­ers through an in­creas­ing­ly ro­bust in­dus­try pro­gramme, while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly de­vel­op­ing lo­cal au­di­ence tastes for home-grown, Caribbean and world cin­e­ma.

At this year's fes­ti­val, which will run from Sep­tem­ber 15-29, the Caribbean Film Mart and Caribbean Film Data­base will be launched.

This is a time­ly and wel­come de­vel­op­ment. Fe­mi in Guade­loupe wel­comes the French mar­ket every March to ex­pose them to films from the French, Eng­lish and Span­ish Caribbean, while pro­gram­ming in­ter­na­tion­al fes­ti­val and Os­car-win­ning hits to au­di­ences across the is­land.

The Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic has in­vest­ed heav­i­ly in the es­tab­lish­ment of a big-bud­get-style in­dus­try on home soil, while trav­el­ling to fes­ti­vals world­wide to pro­mote their ben­e­fits and grow­ing dom­i­nance in this area.

And in Cu­ra�ao they have ben­e­fit­ted from the pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence and art house ca­chet of the In­ter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val Rot­ter­dam in the cre­ation of a fes­ti­val there that not on­ly screens in­ter­na­tion­al films, but al­so sup­ports Caribbean film­mak­ers through a spe­cial award.

And while in­di­vid­ual work con­tin­ues, these and oth­er coun­tries are al­so ac­knowl­edg­ing the val­ue of pool­ing re­sources.

In the last two years, both the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion Of Film Fes­ti­vals and the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion Of Film Com­mis­sion­ers have been formed. There have been on­go­ing vis­its to each oth­er's film fes­ti­vals, re­sult­ing in clos­er pro­fes­sion­al re­la­tion­ships and bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of each oth­er's film land­scapes.

The pres­ence of the Caribbean in Cannes this year there­fore felt like the right mo­ment to ex­ter­nalise our in­tent to join forces.

I was there to pro­mote TTFF, to un­earth new op­por­tu­ni­ties for Caribbean film­mak­ers, to meet sales agents for films, to con­tin­ue to ex­tend the TTFF net­work and to meet po­ten­tial guests for the tenth edi­tion in Sep­tem­ber.

Priscil­la De­lan­nay of FE­MI and Pa­tri­cia Mon­pierre and Marie Claude Per­nelle of APCAG–both from Guade­loupe–and Steve Ze­bi­na of Ren­con­tres Cin�ma from Mar­tinique were there to see films and meet with part­ners and dis­trib­u­tors.

The Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, with film fes­ti­val di­rec­tor Omar de La Cruz and Film Com­mis­sion­er Yvette Marichal, host­ed a stand in the In­ter­na­tion­al Vil­lage where they wel­comed the world to ex­plore the op­por­tu­ni­ties for pro­duc­ing films in their coun­try.

Apart from these Caribbean film ad­min­is­tra­tors, sev­er­al Caribbean film­mak­ers al­so made their pres­ence felt on the Croisette: Jil Ser­vant and Ma­hara­ki from Mar­tinique, Yanilis Perez and Na­talia Cabral from the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Clau­dia Calvi�o from Cu­ba and Ad­jani Salmon from Ja­maica all took ad­van­tage of the op­por­tu­ni­ties in Cannes to shop and pro­mote their projects.

While there is a lot of work to do in all these coun­tries to es­tab­lish suc­cess­ful, thriv­ing and ben­e­fi­cial film in­dus­tries, the signs are cer­tain­ly heart­en­ing.

There is in­creas­ing un­der­stand­ing at gov­ern­ment lev­el of the im­por­tance and val­ue of cre­ative in­dus­tries and pri­vate com­pa­nies are be­gin­ning to see brand in­te­gra­tion and sup­port for lo­cal films as vi­able.

Fur­ther­more our in­ter­na­tion­al net­work of sup­port, en­cour­age­ment and re­sources con­tin­ues to ex­pand and there is an emerg­ing group of promis­ing Caribbean film­mak­ers who will pro­vide the sto­ries and con­tent that will put us on the world stage.

The fu­ture is in­deed bright for Caribbean cin­e­ma.

�2 This blog­post was re­pub­lished with the per­mis­sion of Screen Dai­ly, vis­it their web­site screendai­ly.com.