With a strong line­up of lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al award-win­ning and Os­car-nom­i­nat­ed fea­tures and shorts, the T&T Film Fes­ti­val is get­ting ready to launch an ac­tion-packed week of films, pre­sen­ta­tions, in­dus­try events, red car­pet galas and Awards, be­gin­ning this evening at the Cen­tral Bank Au­di­to­ri­um with the T&T pre­miere of the film Play The Dev­il, set and filmed in Paramin.

The week in­cludes the pre­mieres of four T&T dra­mas, adap­ta­tions of Shake­speare plays–in­clud­ing an all-black cast of King Lear, with British-Tri­ni ac­tor Don War­ring­ton as King Lear, cour­tesy the British Coun­cil. War­ring­ton ar­rives in Trinidad this week to host act­ing work­shops and par­tic­i­pate in Q&As af­ter the screen­ings.

There are al­so doc­u­men­tary films and pan­el dis­cus­sions on such lu­mi­nar­ies as CLR James and Maya An­gelou, and a re­count­ing of a ma­jor in­ci­dent at Cana­da's Sir George Williams Uni­ver­si­ty in 1969, in­volv­ing Trinida­di­an and oth­er Caribbean stu­dents, that led to ri­ots, im­pris­on­ment and de­por­ta­tion for many of the stu­dents. Events un­known to many in T&T, but that im­pact­ed both race re­la­tions in Cana­da and the black pow­er move­ment in T&T.

Ac­cord­ing to founder and fes­ti­val di­rec­tor, Bruce Padding­ton, the Fes­ti­val was con­ceived at a time when there were very few op­por­tu­ni­ties to view lo­cal or Caribbean films, with lim­it­ed lo­cal film pro­duc­tion. Its aim there­fore was to build an au­di­ence for in­de­pen­dent and Caribbean cin­e­ma and to be a ve­hi­cle that helped en­er­gise the lo­cal film in­dus­try.

"Eleven years on, we are proud to be part of a move­ment that cel­e­brates and pro­motes the growth of an in­creas­ing num­ber of qual­i­ty lo­cal and Caribbean films and to be screen­ing four nar­ra­tive fea­ture films from T&T. The films–Play the Dev­il, Cut­lass, Tomb and San­skara–all demon­strate how far the in­dus­try has de­vel­oped."

"We have nev­er had four fic­tion fea­ture films pro­duced in one year. It's a no­table achieve­ment for a de­vel­op­ing in­dus­try like T&T where fund­ing is a chal­lenge. Their work il­lus­trates the mag­ic our film­mak­ers can cre­ate even with lim­it­ed bud­gets and how much more might be pos­si­ble with greater sup­port from in­vestors and the wider pub­lic."

"The four of­fer­ings are al­ready caus­ing a stir on the lo­cal film scene and are ex­pect­ed to play to sold out au­di­ences dur­ing the Fes­ti­val. And there is a rea­son for this. Apart from great sto­ry­lines, cin­e­mat­ic ten­sion and emo­tion­al pulls, some fea­ture spec­tac­u­lar cin­e­matog­ra­phy–aer­i­al shots of Trinidad's north coast and the North­ern range, with the dis­cern­ing view­er able to recog­nise parts of Paramin and Blan­chisseuse, among oth­er lo­ca­tions.

Oth­ers, like Tomb, help us reimag­ine our­selves in out­er space and way in­to the 27th cen­tu­ry–with peo­ple who look and sound like us. The emo­tion­al im­pact of see­ing our­selves on the big screen and vi­sion­ing a fu­ture be­yond our present re­al­i­ties shouldn't be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed. It is and should be a big deal."

"As the cur­tain rais­es on this year's Fes­ti­val, we have sought to en­sure that the films reach as wide an au­di­ence as pos­si­ble, through part­ner­ships with UWI, St. Au­gus­tine and Costaatt cam­pus­es in Port-of-Spain, Ch­agua­nas and San Fer­nan­do, as well as venues in Ari­ma and To­ba­go. The re­la­tion­ship with Costaatt ex­tends be­yond screen­ings, with a se­ries of youth based ini­tia­tives in­clud­ing a Fu­ture Crit­ics Pro­gramme, led by BC Pires and the Ken Gor­don School of Jour­nal­ism and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions."

"There are nu­mer­ous in­di­vid­u­als, or­gan­i­sa­tions and agen­cies that con­tribute to the host­ing of our Fes­ti­val –film­mak­ers, vol­un­teers, spon­sors and part­ners and of course the view­ing pub­lic. Each con­tri­bu­tion is in­valu­able and al­lows us to con­tin­ue our work in sup­port of Caribbean cin­e­ma."

MORE IN­FO

The T&T Film Fes­ti­val (TTFF) cel­e­brates films from and about the Caribbean and its di­as­po­ra, as well as from world cin­e­ma, through an an­nu­al fes­ti­val and year-round screen­ings. In ad­di­tion, the ttff seeks to fa­cil­i­tate the growth of Caribbean cin­e­ma by of­fer­ing a wide-rang­ing in­dus­try pro­gramme and net­work­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties.

The T&T Film Fes­ti­val is pre­sent­ed by Flow, giv­en lead­ing spon­sor­ship by T&T Film Com­pa­ny Ltd (FilmTT), and sup­port­ing spon­sor­ship by RBC Roy­al Bank, The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Em­bassy of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca and the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny.

�2For more in­for­ma­tion, vis­it ttfilm­fes­ti­val.com