Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Melanie Jones Pow­ell’s ca­reer stands at the cross­roads of cre­ativ­i­ty, cul­ture, and com­mu­ni­ty. It is dri­ven by her deep be­lief in sto­ry­telling as a force for so­cial and cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion.

In the Caribbean, sto­ry­telling isn’t just art—it’s in­her­i­tance. Passed down through oral tra­di­tions, mu­sic, lit­er­a­ture, and rit­u­al, it shapes iden­ti­ty, pre­serves mem­o­ry, and in­spires change.

In a re­gion shaped by mi­gra­tion, colo­nial­ism, and re­silience, sto­ries have served us, pre­serv­ing lan­guage, mem­o­ry, and iden­ti­ty across gen­er­a­tions. To­day, the film rep­re­sents a pow­er­ful ex­ten­sion of that tra­di­tion—a mod­ern ves­sel for both con­tem­po­rary and age-old nar­ra­tives.

For cul­tur­al cu­ra­tors like Pow­ell, the film is one of the ways she sees the op­por­tu­ni­ty not on­ly to pre­serve her­itage but to reimag­ine it, us­ing the screen as a plat­form for sto­ries that are deeply lo­cal, yet glob­al­ly res­o­nant.

Part of a team led by Asha Lovelace, Founder and Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the well-loved Africa Film TT and now the Caribbean Film Fes­ti­val, Pow­ell is the Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the CFF. How­ev­er, her path to lead­ing film fes­ti­vals was non-lin­ear.

Mus­ing on what led her to film, she says “I was al­ways cre­ative, some­one you could con­sid­er art­sy. If it’s my last day on earth I can’t spend it in an of­fice, 9-5 job.” Af­ter at­tend­ing Bish­op Anstey High School, Pow­ell pur­sued a Bach­e­lor’s de­gree in Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Film from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies grad­u­at­ing with First Class Ho­n­ours and a Mas­ter of Arts in In­ter­na­tion­al Mi­gra­tion and Eth­nic Re­la­tions from Malmö Uni­ver­si­ty in Swe­den.

Pow­ell’s en­try in­to film start­ed in a sig­nif­i­cant way dur­ing uni­ver­si­ty, when she de­cid­ed to pur­sue it as a mi­nor. She re­called read­ing Caribbean lit­er­a­ture grow­ing up and feel­ing that the books would come alive and res­onate well as films.

“Film is so im­por­tant in iden­ti­ty,” she says. “Un­der­stand­ing who we are and where we come from. We wouldn’t have the num­ber of com­plex­es and in­se­cu­ri­ties we do now, if we were able to see more of our­selves re­flect­ed in a re­al way.”

That sim­ple yet rad­i­cal tenet be­came the heart of her mis­sion—to make Caribbean peo­ple feel seen and val­ued.

Through­out her uni­ver­si­ty ca­reer, her oth­er cre­ative pas­sion emerged.

“I was al­ways the one in charge of the playlist at limes. Even­tu­al­ly, I thought, it would be so much eas­i­er to man­age the mu­sic if I could do the tech­ni­cal stuff,” she laughs.

Pow­ell did a course on DJ-ing, and with her back­ground in com­mu­ni­ca­tions, was able to brand and mar­ket her­self as DJ Hon­ey Co­la­da. In a space of­ten dom­i­nat­ed by men, she shone bright­ly, and felt sat­is­fac­tion “at be­ing some­what de­fi­ant, and pur­su­ing some­thing where I’m against the odds”.

Al­though her pur­suits might seem ran­dom, there’s a clear thread deeply root­ed in cul­ture, cre­ativ­i­ty and ex­pe­ri­ences that con­nect peo­ple.

Be­fore be­ing part of the CFF, Pow­ell spent five years as Fes­ti­val Co­or­di­na­tor at Africa Film Trinidad and To­ba­go (AFTT). There, she saw first­hand how cin­e­ma could cre­ate bridges be­tween African and Caribbean cul­tures.

“Our sto­ries are so much more aligned in many ways—far more than what we see in Hol­ly­wood,” she ex­plains. “If we need in­spi­ra­tion, we can look to­wards African films.”

The in­au­gur­al CFF is now an op­por­tu­ni­ty for Caribbean film­mak­ers and cre­atives to flex their cre­ative mus­cles, and chal­lenge the sta­tus quo, with Pow­ell and Lovelace as the lead­ers cham­pi­oning Caribbean voic­es, and build­ing events that feel im­mer­sive and in­ten­tion­al, “stretch­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties of what Caribbean cin­e­ma can be”.

Look­ing to­ward the fu­ture, Pow­ell is ex­cit­ed to con­tin­ue to broad­en her mis­sion of telling Caribbean sto­ries and Black sto­ries of the di­as­po­ra. She was re­cent­ly in­vit­ed to join the ju­ry of the UK-based Women of the Lens Film Fes­ti­val, an event ded­i­cat­ed to high­light­ing fe­male di­rec­tors and film­mak­ers, es­pe­cial­ly Black British women.

A tes­ta­ment to her ded­i­ca­tion to the in­dus­try, she is ho­n­oured and wants to do more of that, “ex­pand­ing my pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney in­to dif­fer­ent fes­ti­vals, learn­ing, ex­chang­ing and col­lab­o­rat­ing”. For Pow­ell, this act of cre­at­ing strong net­works and build­ing bridges be­tween di­as­poric film com­mu­ni­ties is not just ben­e­fi­cial—it’s es­sen­tial.

A wife and moth­er, Pow­ell is on a con­stant jour­ney, learn­ing to find the bal­ance be­tween cre­ativ­i­ty, am­bi­tion and fam­i­ly. “The old age say­ing of it takes a vil­lage is so cliched,” she laughs, “but it’s com­plete­ly true.”

For ex­am­ple, with the CFF launch­ing next week, she has had to re­ly on her par­ents, and aunts to help with child­care and can’t imag­ine how she would ac­com­plish it with­out their sup­port.

The truth is that she is still try­ing to find the bal­ance, “learn­ing to ad­just time and fo­cus where nec­es­sary”, as she con­tin­ues to have grace with her­self.

At the core of Melanie Jones Pow­ell’s work is a be­lief that Caribbean sto­ries mat­ter. In a world where dom­i­nant nar­ra­tives drown out our re­gion­al voic­es, she takes se­ri­ous­ly the task of cham­pi­oning Caribbean sto­ry­telling as a cul­tur­al ne­ces­si­ty—one that speaks au­then­ti­cal­ly to our roots, pow­er­ful­ly to our present, and pur­pose­ful­ly to our fu­ture.