Trinidad and To­ba­go film­mak­er Teneille Newal­lo’s DANM opened the 20th Trinidad AND To­ba­go Film Fes­ti­val with a world pre­miere and left the fes­ti­val with two ma­jor awards, in­clud­ing Best Film Made in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The film al­so cap­tured the Peo­ple’s Choice Award, giv­ing Newal­lo a dou­ble vic­to­ry as the fes­ti­val cel­e­brat­ed two decades of Caribbean and in­ter­na­tion­al cin­e­ma.

The awards were pre­sent­ed fol­low­ing the fes­ti­val, held from Sep­tem­ber 23 to 27, with DANM open­ing the 20th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions on Sep­tem­ber 22 at the Cen­tral Bank Au­di­to­ri­um.

Films from Trinidad and To­ba­go, Cu­ba, Do­mini­ca, Cana­da and the Unit­ed States fea­tured among the ma­jor awardees, re­flect­ing the range of sto­ries and film­mak­ing tal­ent rep­re­sent­ed at this year’s fes­ti­val.

Cuban film­mak­er Palo­ma Go­mide’s If Life Gave Me a Wish (Si la vi­da me diera un de­seo) won the Padding­ton Prize for Best Stu­dent Film.

For Go­mide, the recog­ni­tion was par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant as she pre­pares to move from short films to­wards her first fea­ture.

“Win­ning an award right here in the Caribbean, the very re­gion where If Life Gave Me a Wish was made, makes me deeply hap­py,” she said.

“It means the film suc­cess­ful­ly con­nect­ed with its clos­est au­di­ence, which was ul­ti­mate­ly one of my pri­ma­ry goals.”

The film grew from Go­mide’s en­counter with a group of Cuban women whose hus­bands were in­car­cer­at­ed. Their shared ex­pe­ri­ence of liv­ing with pro­longed un­cer­tain­ty be­came the foun­da­tion for a sto­ry about fe­male strength, in­ti­ma­cy and sol­i­dar­i­ty.

Go­mide said the TTFF recog­ni­tion has strength­ened her con­fi­dence in the cin­e­mat­ic lan­guage and aes­thet­ic she is de­vel­op­ing.

“Be­yond serv­ing as a vi­tal af­fir­ma­tion that we are on the right path re­gard­ing lan­guage and aes­thet­ics, this award sig­nif­i­cant­ly strength­ens my pro­file as I seek fi­nanc­ing and part­ners for fu­ture projects,” she said.

Newal­lo’s dou­ble recog­ni­tion

For Newal­lo, the fes­ti­val pro­vid­ed an im­por­tant mile­stone for DANM, which was se­lect­ed as the open­ing gala film for the an­niver­sary edi­tion be­fore go­ing on to win Best Film Made in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Newal­lo said she was ho­n­oured to have the film se­lect­ed from a strong field of lo­cal pro­duc­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the fes­ti­val’s 20th an­niver­sary.

“Win­ning Best T&T Fea­ture is a pro­found ho­n­our, as I know it was judged amongst some oth­er great qual­i­ty films that I was lucky enough to have had a chance to see,” she said.

The film­mak­er al­so point­ed to the Peo­ple’s Choice Award as ev­i­dence that the film con­nect­ed with au­di­ences be­yond the judg­ing pan­el, de­scrib­ing the recog­ni­tion as an en­cour­ag­ing sign of its com­mer­cial po­ten­tial.

DANM was in­spired by sev­er­al deeply per­son­al and cul­tur­al in­flu­ences, in­clud­ing Newal­lo’s daugh­ter, her love of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s folk­lore and her de­sire to cre­ate sub­stan­tial roles for lo­cal ac­tors.

She hopes the film’s dou­ble recog­ni­tion will help pro­pel it in­to wider re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets while open­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for fu­ture projects.

“To win both the Peo­ple’s Choice Award and Best T+T Film, with a pure­ly au­then­tic Trin­bag­on­ian film on its 20th an­niver­sary, is a state­ment that DANM is both an en­ter­tain­ing film and a movie of good qual­i­ty,” she said.

Re­gion­al voic­es recog­nised

Oth­er ma­jor awardees in­clud­ed Bumpa, di­rect­ed by Kay­la Watkins of the Unit­ed States, which won Best Short Doc­u­men­tary.

The Things We Car­ry, di­rect­ed by Kyvon Ed­win of St Lu­cia, won Best Fic­tion Short, while From For­tune, di­rect­ed by Chris­telle Pow­ell of Do­mini­ca, re­ceived an Ho­n­ourable Men­tion in the cat­e­go­ry.

Cana­di­an film­mak­er Maya An­nik Bed­ward, who has Ja­maican parent­age, won Best Doc­u­men­tary Fea­ture for Black Zom­bie.

Car(r)mil­la, di­rect­ed by Trinidad and To­ba­go film­mak­er Kear­ra Amaya Gopee, re­ceived an Ho­n­ourable Men­tion for Best Film Made in T&T.