Er­line An­drews

An­i­mae Caribe, the first an­i­ma­tion fes­ti­val in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean, was found­ed 15 years ago in T&T and has been grow­ing since then in size and im­por­tance.

Now a se­lec­tion of films that had been shown at the fes­ti­val over the years is be­ing ex­hib­it­ed in Wash­ing­ton DC. It's the first time An­i­mae Caribe films are be­ing dis­played in a venue out­side the Caribbean.

"It's a fab­u­lous op­por­tu­ni­ty for us," says An­i­mae Caribe founder Camille Selvon-Abra­hams of the ex­hi­bi­tion, now on at the IDB Cul­tur­al Cen­ter in DC.

The ex­hi­bi­tion, called Caribbean in Mo­tion: Im­prov­ing Lives through Artistry and An­i­ma­tion, in­cludes ten cre­ations by an­i­ma­tors from T&T, Ja­maica and the Ba­hamas. They show­case a di­ver­si­ty of tal­ent and ideas while at the same time be­ing dis­tinct­ly Caribbean.

Two films give a hu­mourous look at work­ing class life: Cab­bie Chron­i­cles–Dri­ve Thru Dra­ma by Trinida­di­ans Al­i­son Latch­man, Anieph Latch­man and Mar­lo Scott won the best Caribbean an­i­ma­tion award at the 2010 An­i­mae Caribe. And Ven­dor Ri­val­ry by Ja­maican Ansar Sat­tar won the fes­ti­val's most ou­s­tand­ing Caribbean an­i­ma­tion award in 2009.

Dance of the Dar­ing by Trinida­di­an Danielle Blaize is a silent in­tro­spec­tive film that ex­am­ines same sex re­la­tion­ships and the risks of be­ing your­self in a world that push­es for con­for­mi­ty. The film won best re­gion­al stu­dent film at last year's fes­ti­val.

Project Nin­ja Slip­pers by Trinida­di­an Make­si Aquan is an ani­me-like fan­ta­sy film.

The ex­hi­bi­tion fea­tures two pieces from Trinida­di­an Wen­dell Mc­Shine, one of the most cel­e­brat­ed an­i­ma­tors/artists in the Caribbean: A mu­sic video for 12 The Band's song Pros­per, which won the best use of an­i­ma­tion in a mu­sic video in 2010 and Rain­bow Hill, which won the award for the best T&T short that year. Both show Mc­Shine's sig­na­ture com­bi­na­tion of col­lage, sur­re­al­ism and il­lus­tra­tion.

The sub­mis­sions from Ba­hami­an Khia Poiti­er are gifs, flick­er­ing dig­i­tal im­ages. One of them, Alt/rs, is a trip­tych show­ing three black wet nurs­es from the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, one breast­feed­ing a white ba­by who turns in­to what looks like a pile of worms. The woman's face is cov­ered by a yel­low cir­cle.

The ex­hi­bi­tion took two to three months to put to­geth­er, said Selvon-Abra­hams. She ex­plained how she chose the films.

"I went through over the years the ones that had the most im­pact," she said.In putting the ex­hi­bi­tion to­geth­er, she said, "we had to make sure it was ex­press­ing our Caribbean iden­ti­ty."

Jonathan Gold­man, cu­ra­tor at the IDB Cul­tur­al Cen­ter, ex­plained the in­ter­est in an ex­hi­bi­tion of Caribbean an­i­ma­tion.

"The Cul­tur­al Cen­ter of the IDB has a long tra­di­tion of bring­ing the art of the Amer­i­c­as to Wash­ing­ton," he said via email. "We have de­vel­oped this ex­hib­it to not on­ly high­light the de­mand for an­i­ma­tion in the world and the eco­nom­ics be­hind it, but al­so the so­cial, cul­tur­al, and artis­tic

con­tri­bu­tions Caribbean an­i­ma­tors have al­ready been mak­ing and could con­tin­ue to make."

Selvon-Abra­hams was in­vit­ed to help or­gan­ise the ex­hi­bi­tion at a point of un­cer­tain­ty for her ca­reer and the fes­ti­val. She had just been ac­ri­mo­nious­ly and–she said–un­fair­ly fired last year as head of the an­i­ma­tion pro­gramme at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad & To­ba­go. The UTT Port-of-Spain cam­pus and its an­i­ma­tion stu­dents were im­por­tant to the fes­ti­val.

"I kind of put it aside," she said of the in­vi­ta­tion, "be­cause I was deal­ing with the emo­tions of all the things that were hap­pen­ing. I got a call like a month af­ter, say­ing they still want­ed to do this.

"As soon as I kind of pulled my­self to­geth­er, I re­alised the huge im­pact this will have on the in­dus­try and I pushed for­ward to make it hap­pen," she said.

The re­sponse from view­ers has been good so far, she said.

"The feed­back we've had is that peo­ple are blown away by the lev­el of pro­fes­sion­al an­i­ma­tion com­ing out of the Caribbean," she said. "So much so that there's been re­quests for us to take it to the Ba­hamas, to Ja­maica and pos­si­bly Mai­mi."

An­i­mae Caribe came off last year, small­er than usu­al, at al­ter­na­tive venues.

"I was de­ter­mined to make sure that An­i­mae Caribe hap­pened so that we could show peo­ple that it was sus­tain­able even with­out space and aca­d­e­m­ic sup­port," she said, "that this will con­tin­ue be­cause of the pow­er of young peo­ple who want to make it hap­pen."

An­i­mae Caribe doesn't yet have a venue for this year. But Selvon Abra­hams plans to take it to To­ba­go–Cas­tara to be ex­act–over the last two days in an at­tempt to weave tourism in­to the ex­pe­ri­ence.

"The an­i­ma­tion will lit­er­al­ly be tak­ing over the Cas­tara com­mu­ni­ty–in the rum shops, in the com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters, at the beach," she said.

The DC ex­hi­bi­tion gives a ma­jor boost just in time for the fes­ti­val's an­niver­sary. Selvon Abra­hams plans to bring it to T&T.She re­called say­ing at the clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the fes­ti­val last year that she want­ed it to make "some tan­gi­ble move­ments" in its 15th year.

The ex­hi­bi­tion, she said, "was one of many out­comes that I thought,'OK, we're mak­ing a dent.'"

The Caribbean in Mo­tion ex­hi­bi­tion runs un­til Ju­ly 29. An­i­mae Caribe will run from Oc­to­ber 24 to 30.