In today’s roundup, “Queen Sugar” added new cast members and directors to its third season, and “American Idol” announced dates and cities for its summer auditions.
Award Shows
PromaxBDA will honor Debra L. Lee, Bet networks chairman and CEO emeritus, with its lifetime achievement award. The marketing, promotion and design association will present Lee with the distinction at the PromaxBDA Conference in New York on June 14.
Dates
ABC has announced the audition tour locations and dates for the second reboot season of “American Idol.” Starting Aug. 25, the “Idol” team will be traveling to 20 cities in search of its next amateur stars. This year’s tour stops include Orlando, Fla. and San Diego, Calif. (Aug. 25); Chattanooga, Tenn. and Scottsdale, Ariz. (Aug. 28); Charlotte, N.C., Albuquerque, N.M., and Seattle, Wash. (Aug. 31); Boise, Idaho (Sep. 2); Richmond, Va. and Plano, Texas (Sep. 3); Houston, Texas (Sep. 4); Austin, Texas, Philadelphia, Pa., and Oklahoma City,...
Award Shows
PromaxBDA will honor Debra L. Lee, Bet networks chairman and CEO emeritus, with its lifetime achievement award. The marketing, promotion and design association will present Lee with the distinction at the PromaxBDA Conference in New York on June 14.
Dates
ABC has announced the audition tour locations and dates for the second reboot season of “American Idol.” Starting Aug. 25, the “Idol” team will be traveling to 20 cities in search of its next amateur stars. This year’s tour stops include Orlando, Fla. and San Diego, Calif. (Aug. 25); Chattanooga, Tenn. and Scottsdale, Ariz. (Aug. 28); Charlotte, N.C., Albuquerque, N.M., and Seattle, Wash. (Aug. 31); Boise, Idaho (Sep. 2); Richmond, Va. and Plano, Texas (Sep. 3); Houston, Texas (Sep. 4); Austin, Texas, Philadelphia, Pa., and Oklahoma City,...
- 6/6/2018
- by Christi Carras
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: One week after Queen Sugar‘s two-part Season 3 debut on Own, the drama executive produced by Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay has announced the final set of directors for the all-female-helmed series and widened its inclusion scope with new castings.
The new directors are Nijla Mu’min, Christina Choe, Ayoka Chenzira and Rachel Raimist, along with the return of Queen Sugar Season 3 showrunner Kat Candler. They join previously announced Season 3 helmers DeMane Davis, Patricia Cardoso, Shaz Bennett, Maria Govan and Lauren Wolkstein.
In addition, Vivien Ngo (Shameless), Tony Aidan Vo (Alternatino) and Elyse Dinh McCrillis (Spider-Man 2) will recur on the show as part of a narrative that focuses on New Orleans’ strong Vietnamese community and of course its interaction with the Bordelons family, friends and enemies.
If you haven’t been watching Queen Sugar, which you should, here is the detailed Season 3 logline to catch you up fpr tonight...
The new directors are Nijla Mu’min, Christina Choe, Ayoka Chenzira and Rachel Raimist, along with the return of Queen Sugar Season 3 showrunner Kat Candler. They join previously announced Season 3 helmers DeMane Davis, Patricia Cardoso, Shaz Bennett, Maria Govan and Lauren Wolkstein.
In addition, Vivien Ngo (Shameless), Tony Aidan Vo (Alternatino) and Elyse Dinh McCrillis (Spider-Man 2) will recur on the show as part of a narrative that focuses on New Orleans’ strong Vietnamese community and of course its interaction with the Bordelons family, friends and enemies.
If you haven’t been watching Queen Sugar, which you should, here is the detailed Season 3 logline to catch you up fpr tonight...
- 6/6/2018
- by Dominic Patten
- Deadline Film + TV
The founder of the inaugural Third Horizon Caribbean Film Festival and his friend, director of programming, preview this week’s event.
Jeffers, a Barbados native, musician and former journalist who founded the festival and also serves as its artistic director, and London-based Trinidadian Ali, a veteran programmer who has worked at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival and Toronto, believe the time is right for Third Horizon and its particular focus.
The event runs from September 29-October 2 and opens with Guetty Felin’s Ayiti Mon Amour (pictured). All screenings will take place at the O Cinema in Wynwood, Miami.
What’s the idea behind Third Horizon?
Jason Jeffers (from a note previously sent to Ali): Third Horizon came about from this sense, as a kid, that I had of the stories of the Caribbean and Third World being regarded as supplementary to those of the First World. We were bit players in world affairs and in...
Jeffers, a Barbados native, musician and former journalist who founded the festival and also serves as its artistic director, and London-based Trinidadian Ali, a veteran programmer who has worked at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival and Toronto, believe the time is right for Third Horizon and its particular focus.
The event runs from September 29-October 2 and opens with Guetty Felin’s Ayiti Mon Amour (pictured). All screenings will take place at the O Cinema in Wynwood, Miami.
What’s the idea behind Third Horizon?
Jason Jeffers (from a note previously sent to Ali): Third Horizon came about from this sense, as a kid, that I had of the stories of the Caribbean and Third World being regarded as supplementary to those of the First World. We were bit players in world affairs and in...
- 9/29/2016
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
The Winners of Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival 2016
“Before The Rooster Crows” (“Antes que cante el gallo”) (trailer here) of Puerto Rico won top prize for Best Feature Narrative, and “The Cutlass” from Trinidad + Tobago won People’s Choice Award for Best Feature Narrative. Port of Spain, Trinidad was the place where the ttff awards prizes were granted Tuesday 27 September.
Watch the ttff trailer here.
People’S Choice Awards
TT$5,000 each / Sponsored by Flow
Best Feature Film — Narrative: “The Cutlass” — Darisha Beresford
Best Feature Film–Documentary: “Landfill Harmonic” — Brad Allgood + Graham Townsley...
“Before The Rooster Crows” (“Antes que cante el gallo”) (trailer here) of Puerto Rico won top prize for Best Feature Narrative, and “The Cutlass” from Trinidad + Tobago won People’s Choice Award for Best Feature Narrative. Port of Spain, Trinidad was the place where the ttff awards prizes were granted Tuesday 27 September.
Watch the ttff trailer here.
People’S Choice Awards
TT$5,000 each / Sponsored by Flow
Best Feature Film — Narrative: “The Cutlass” — Darisha Beresford
Best Feature Film–Documentary: “Landfill Harmonic” — Brad Allgood + Graham Townsley...
- 9/28/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Top brass announced on Tuesday the 42 world premieres selected for the Us Fiction, Documentary, World Fiction, La Muse, and Nightfall Competitions to screen at the festival, set to run from June 1-9 in Los Angeles.
Derrick Borte’s London Town (UK), Maria Govan’s Play The Devil (pictured, Trinidad-Bahamas-usa) are among the World Fiction Competition entries, while Amber Tamblyn’s Paint It Black (USA) plays in the Us Fiction Competition.
The Documentary Competition includes Out Of Iraq (Canada-Iraq-Lebanon-usa) by Eva Orner and Chris McKim, and Darren Lynn Bousman’s Abattoir (USA) plays in genre section Nightfall, and Actors Of Sound (Argentina-Finland-Germany-India-Ireland-usa) screens in the La Muse programme.
Across the five feature competition categories, 43% of the films are directed by women and 38% by people of colour.
As previously announced, the opening night film is the world premiere of Ricardo De Montreuil’s Lowriders, while this year’s guest director is Ryan Coogler. Ava DuVernay and Array...
Derrick Borte’s London Town (UK), Maria Govan’s Play The Devil (pictured, Trinidad-Bahamas-usa) are among the World Fiction Competition entries, while Amber Tamblyn’s Paint It Black (USA) plays in the Us Fiction Competition.
The Documentary Competition includes Out Of Iraq (Canada-Iraq-Lebanon-usa) by Eva Orner and Chris McKim, and Darren Lynn Bousman’s Abattoir (USA) plays in genre section Nightfall, and Actors Of Sound (Argentina-Finland-Germany-India-Ireland-usa) screens in the La Muse programme.
Across the five feature competition categories, 43% of the films are directed by women and 38% by people of colour.
As previously announced, the opening night film is the world premiere of Ricardo De Montreuil’s Lowriders, while this year’s guest director is Ryan Coogler. Ava DuVernay and Array...
- 4/26/2016
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
In its mission to be a platform for the development of projects in Central America and the Caribbean, First Look/ Primer Mirada of the Industry Section of Iff Panama grants aid for the completion of feature films are in post-production to increase their visibility in the international film market.
Alliance with Cannes
First Look has Us$ 15,000.00 from private funds to support the completion of productions. Thanks to the alliance between Panama Iff and Cannes, the winning film will be screened at the Marché du Film de Cannes - one of the most important film markets in the world. The winner will also receive an accreditation to the Cannes Film Festival plus travel and accommodations.
The winner will also receive the official poster design by Boogieman Media . A creative team that made the posters of acclaimed films as “The Clan” and “Wild Tales”. In addition, the production teams of the five pre-selected projects will receive advice on the graphic image of their respective films. This consultancy will be conducted by Leandro Mark, the director of Memorial Map, and Max Saad .
In addition to economic aid to the winner, all selected projects will be shown in private sessions for industry distributors, representatives of other film festivals and sales agents. The directors and producers of the projects will answer questions and receive suggestions from members of the international film industry, in order to enrich their projects in this final stage.
The international jury will be responsible for deciding the winner of works-in-progress. The jury, composed of specialists from Latin American cinema who share Iff Panama’s mission to support the growing film industry in the region include the director of the Film Festival in Havana, Ivan Giroud the uncle of Pavel Giroud, who is participating in Iff Panama with his film “The Companion”; Canadian Jaie Laplante who is the director of the Miami Film Festival; and Yissel Ibarra of the Mexican Film Institute (Imcine).
This year, First Look received 46 nominations for movies in progress. The five films chosen for competition are:
”Hold Me Like Before”/ “Abrazame como antes”, 70 min. (Costa Rica, 2016)
Director: Jurgen Ureña
Producer: Gustavo Sanchez Cubero
Veronica is a transgender prostitute on the streets of San Jose. One night, a car of her client strikes an enigmatic teenager known as Tato. Impulsively, Veronica decides to take the boy to her apartment for shelter and food. The next day, misunderstanding of the motives behind the actions of his hostess, Tato plans to escape. A relationship of identification, solidarity and tension initially arise between Veronica and Tato but they are affected soon by Veronica friends.
"Jeffrey," 80 min. (Dominican Republic, 2016)
Director - Producer: Yanillys Pérez
Despite his difficult life, 12-year-old Jeffrey, a Dominican windshield wiper, dreams of being a reggaeton singer. This dream helps him escape the harsh reality of his adult life full of responsibility. He writes songs with his older brother Jeyson, 18, about his life, his neighborhood and society they perceive. Guided by Jeffrey, they deal with their daily lives, their broken family while they dance reggaeton and dembow.
“Play the Devil,” 92 min. (Trinidad and Tobago, 2016)
Director: Maria Govan
Producer: Abigail Hadeed
Set in the exquisite landscape of Trinidad at the time of Carnival, Gregory, a black working class youth of 18 acts in a local theater where he is discovered by businessman James Young, who is immediately attracted by Gregory and seeks all means to approach him. Carnival arrives on Monday, young men cover their bodies with blue paint and dressed as devils, they descend into the valley, where howls and drums that are lost in the carnal dance are heard. This is the scene of a fatal showdown that will change their lives forever.
“Play the Devil” was first presented as a pitch last year at the inaugural Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival’s Industry Days.
"Noelí Overseas," 65 min. (Dominican Republic, 2016)
Director: Laura Amelia Guzmán
In attendance: Actress Desiree Reyes
The dream of many Dominican women is to go to Europe, as in the case of Noelí and her mother. Noelí is an actress and is hired to film a movie in Venice, while her mother does domestic work in Spain. After filming, Noelí visits her mother whom she has not seen for 10 years; nostalgia and desire to return to the island are just below the surface of their meeting.
“Sultán,” 95 min. (Panama, 2016)
Director: Enrique Castro Rios
Producer: María Neyla Santamaría
Ten years after the brief but brutal 1989 U.S. military invasion of Panama, three survivors, a boy, his mother and grandmother, share an uncomfortably intimate reconciliation guided by the ghost of one person who lost the most on that pitiless night.
Variety’s exclusive reportage in 2015 quoted Castro Rios explaining how the film touches on race relations and segregation in Panama and within families. In the film, the grandmother has married whiter, part of a mindset to “improve the race”; her son marries a girl of West Indian descent, which the mother sees as a “backward” step. When the son is killed during the U.S. invasion, racial and other tensions drive the grandmother, daughter-in-law and her young son apart, until a ghost from the past comes to try and reunite them.
The cast includes Nina Vincent from Panama and Jerónimo Henao of Colombia, as well as Panamanian newcomers Delicia Montañez and Alex Jiménez.
“Sultán’s” first financial support was announced at the closing night of the Panama Film Festival in 2013, when it became the first feature to be supported by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s Fondo Cine Cinema Fund. Paid in installments, the award was a very respectable $700,000. The budget Castro Rios projects is around $1.1 million.
The film is a coproduction between Sultan el Film (Panama) and Milagros Producciones (Colombia). It also received support from the Ibermedis Fund and of the Film Development Fund of Colombia (Fdc).
Written and directed by Enrique Castro Ríos and produced by María Neyla Santamaría, "Sultán" is the first feature film produced with the support of the Panama Film Commission and represents a new Panamanian independent film industry.
Castro Rios’ previous credits include the short “Wata,” awarded best Central American short film at the Icarus Film Festival of Guatemala in 2010.
The co-production was filmed by cinematographer Diego Jiménez (Colombia), and executive produced by Miriam Pons (Panama).
About the Foundation Iff Panama
Foundation International Film Festival of Panama (Iff Panama Foundation) is a non - profit organization created to support the implementation of the International Film Festival of Panama and promote cultural and educational activities that are an integral part of the event organization . The Festival is sponsored mainly by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (Miti), Tourism Authority of Panama, MasterCard®, Copa Airlines, 507 Red Lager, Mayor of Panama, K Magazine, Tvn FIlms, among other generous sponsors .
See more here.
Alliance with Cannes
First Look has Us$ 15,000.00 from private funds to support the completion of productions. Thanks to the alliance between Panama Iff and Cannes, the winning film will be screened at the Marché du Film de Cannes - one of the most important film markets in the world. The winner will also receive an accreditation to the Cannes Film Festival plus travel and accommodations.
The winner will also receive the official poster design by Boogieman Media . A creative team that made the posters of acclaimed films as “The Clan” and “Wild Tales”. In addition, the production teams of the five pre-selected projects will receive advice on the graphic image of their respective films. This consultancy will be conducted by Leandro Mark, the director of Memorial Map, and Max Saad .
In addition to economic aid to the winner, all selected projects will be shown in private sessions for industry distributors, representatives of other film festivals and sales agents. The directors and producers of the projects will answer questions and receive suggestions from members of the international film industry, in order to enrich their projects in this final stage.
The international jury will be responsible for deciding the winner of works-in-progress. The jury, composed of specialists from Latin American cinema who share Iff Panama’s mission to support the growing film industry in the region include the director of the Film Festival in Havana, Ivan Giroud the uncle of Pavel Giroud, who is participating in Iff Panama with his film “The Companion”; Canadian Jaie Laplante who is the director of the Miami Film Festival; and Yissel Ibarra of the Mexican Film Institute (Imcine).
This year, First Look received 46 nominations for movies in progress. The five films chosen for competition are:
”Hold Me Like Before”/ “Abrazame como antes”, 70 min. (Costa Rica, 2016)
Director: Jurgen Ureña
Producer: Gustavo Sanchez Cubero
Veronica is a transgender prostitute on the streets of San Jose. One night, a car of her client strikes an enigmatic teenager known as Tato. Impulsively, Veronica decides to take the boy to her apartment for shelter and food. The next day, misunderstanding of the motives behind the actions of his hostess, Tato plans to escape. A relationship of identification, solidarity and tension initially arise between Veronica and Tato but they are affected soon by Veronica friends.
"Jeffrey," 80 min. (Dominican Republic, 2016)
Director - Producer: Yanillys Pérez
Despite his difficult life, 12-year-old Jeffrey, a Dominican windshield wiper, dreams of being a reggaeton singer. This dream helps him escape the harsh reality of his adult life full of responsibility. He writes songs with his older brother Jeyson, 18, about his life, his neighborhood and society they perceive. Guided by Jeffrey, they deal with their daily lives, their broken family while they dance reggaeton and dembow.
“Play the Devil,” 92 min. (Trinidad and Tobago, 2016)
Director: Maria Govan
Producer: Abigail Hadeed
Set in the exquisite landscape of Trinidad at the time of Carnival, Gregory, a black working class youth of 18 acts in a local theater where he is discovered by businessman James Young, who is immediately attracted by Gregory and seeks all means to approach him. Carnival arrives on Monday, young men cover their bodies with blue paint and dressed as devils, they descend into the valley, where howls and drums that are lost in the carnal dance are heard. This is the scene of a fatal showdown that will change their lives forever.
“Play the Devil” was first presented as a pitch last year at the inaugural Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival’s Industry Days.
"Noelí Overseas," 65 min. (Dominican Republic, 2016)
Director: Laura Amelia Guzmán
In attendance: Actress Desiree Reyes
The dream of many Dominican women is to go to Europe, as in the case of Noelí and her mother. Noelí is an actress and is hired to film a movie in Venice, while her mother does domestic work in Spain. After filming, Noelí visits her mother whom she has not seen for 10 years; nostalgia and desire to return to the island are just below the surface of their meeting.
“Sultán,” 95 min. (Panama, 2016)
Director: Enrique Castro Rios
Producer: María Neyla Santamaría
Ten years after the brief but brutal 1989 U.S. military invasion of Panama, three survivors, a boy, his mother and grandmother, share an uncomfortably intimate reconciliation guided by the ghost of one person who lost the most on that pitiless night.
Variety’s exclusive reportage in 2015 quoted Castro Rios explaining how the film touches on race relations and segregation in Panama and within families. In the film, the grandmother has married whiter, part of a mindset to “improve the race”; her son marries a girl of West Indian descent, which the mother sees as a “backward” step. When the son is killed during the U.S. invasion, racial and other tensions drive the grandmother, daughter-in-law and her young son apart, until a ghost from the past comes to try and reunite them.
The cast includes Nina Vincent from Panama and Jerónimo Henao of Colombia, as well as Panamanian newcomers Delicia Montañez and Alex Jiménez.
“Sultán’s” first financial support was announced at the closing night of the Panama Film Festival in 2013, when it became the first feature to be supported by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s Fondo Cine Cinema Fund. Paid in installments, the award was a very respectable $700,000. The budget Castro Rios projects is around $1.1 million.
The film is a coproduction between Sultan el Film (Panama) and Milagros Producciones (Colombia). It also received support from the Ibermedis Fund and of the Film Development Fund of Colombia (Fdc).
Written and directed by Enrique Castro Ríos and produced by María Neyla Santamaría, "Sultán" is the first feature film produced with the support of the Panama Film Commission and represents a new Panamanian independent film industry.
Castro Rios’ previous credits include the short “Wata,” awarded best Central American short film at the Icarus Film Festival of Guatemala in 2010.
The co-production was filmed by cinematographer Diego Jiménez (Colombia), and executive produced by Miriam Pons (Panama).
About the Foundation Iff Panama
Foundation International Film Festival of Panama (Iff Panama Foundation) is a non - profit organization created to support the implementation of the International Film Festival of Panama and promote cultural and educational activities that are an integral part of the event organization . The Festival is sponsored mainly by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (Miti), Tourism Authority of Panama, MasterCard®, Copa Airlines, 507 Red Lager, Mayor of Panama, K Magazine, Tvn FIlms, among other generous sponsors .
See more here.
- 4/6/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Iff Panama’s first-look sidebar for central American and Caribbean projects awards grants for market visibility and completion of features in post.
The jurors are Ivan Giroud, director of the Festival de Cine de la Habana, Miami Film Festival executive director Jaie Laplante, and Imcine’s Yissel Ibarra.
The five Primera Mirada selections chosen from 46 submissions are: Jurgen Ureña’s Hold Me Like Before (Costa Rica); Yanillys Pérez’ Jeffrey (Dominican Republic); Maria Govan’s Play The Devil (Trinidad & Tobago); Laura Amelia Guzmán’s Noeli Overseas (Dominican Republic); and Enrique Castro Rios’ Panamanian selection, Sultan.
The recipient of the $15,000 Iff Panama-Cannes Film Festival Alliance award will screen at the French market on the Croisette in May and the director will get a paid trip to Cannes and full festival accreditation.
Boogieman Media will design the winning film’s official poster and has worked on such titles as The Clan, Wild Tales and Aire Libre.
All projects...
The jurors are Ivan Giroud, director of the Festival de Cine de la Habana, Miami Film Festival executive director Jaie Laplante, and Imcine’s Yissel Ibarra.
The five Primera Mirada selections chosen from 46 submissions are: Jurgen Ureña’s Hold Me Like Before (Costa Rica); Yanillys Pérez’ Jeffrey (Dominican Republic); Maria Govan’s Play The Devil (Trinidad & Tobago); Laura Amelia Guzmán’s Noeli Overseas (Dominican Republic); and Enrique Castro Rios’ Panamanian selection, Sultan.
The recipient of the $15,000 Iff Panama-Cannes Film Festival Alliance award will screen at the French market on the Croisette in May and the director will get a paid trip to Cannes and full festival accreditation.
Boogieman Media will design the winning film’s official poster and has worked on such titles as The Clan, Wild Tales and Aire Libre.
All projects...
- 3/31/2016
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: The trinidad+tobago film festival and its Caribbean Film Mart will launch five works-in-progress at the Buenos Aires market next month.
Ventana Caribe stems from a mutual desire to foster strong ties between the Caribbean and Latin American industries.
Javier Fernandez, the artistic coordinator and head of the Blood Window genre market that takes place during Ventana Sur, attended the trinidad+tobago film festival in late September.
“We at Ventana Sur were honoured to form a joint venture with Caribbean Film Mart at its inaugural edition to shed light on the Caribbean region,” Fernandez said.
“With the specific aim of fostering connections between Latin America and the Caribbean, Ventana Sur will launch, at its seventh edition, Ventana Caribe, for projects in post-production.
“There will be co-production meetings, a video library and a panel presentation with a ttff representative. We hope this collaboration lasts long and offers support to both our cinema industries.”
“We have been...
Ventana Caribe stems from a mutual desire to foster strong ties between the Caribbean and Latin American industries.
Javier Fernandez, the artistic coordinator and head of the Blood Window genre market that takes place during Ventana Sur, attended the trinidad+tobago film festival in late September.
“We at Ventana Sur were honoured to form a joint venture with Caribbean Film Mart at its inaugural edition to shed light on the Caribbean region,” Fernandez said.
“With the specific aim of fostering connections between Latin America and the Caribbean, Ventana Sur will launch, at its seventh edition, Ventana Caribe, for projects in post-production.
“There will be co-production meetings, a video library and a panel presentation with a ttff representative. We hope this collaboration lasts long and offers support to both our cinema industries.”
“We have been...
- 11/16/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
The Caribbean Film Mart (Cfm) has been in the making for several years and in September its debut took place at the 2015 trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) . Bruce Paddington, a filmmaker himself as well as an academic and the Founder and Director of the Festival, along with Annebelle Alcazar, Jonathan Ali and Nneka Luke, and spearheading the Cfm and the Caribbean Film Database (Cfdb) , Emilie Upczak and Melanie Archer, have created an A level event which after 10 years now encompasses three important aspects of film beyond the showcasing of the Caribbean and international docs and fiction films: filmmaking, film marketing and film education which this year included an academic symposium through the University of the West Indies, a Youth Jury of young people from 16 to 21 and sold out matinees for school children.
Cfm envisages the Caribbean -- home to the most genetically variegated people of the world -- as a whole whose varied stories will go out into the larger world (much like the Trinis themselves). Coming from islands which remind us of those planets described in Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ), the Caribbeanos gathered here in Trinidad to receive coaching and positive feedback to extend their reach into the rest of world. Our world, still divided along colonial and post-colonial color and class lines needs this idealistic and inspiring vision.
For more coverage of the event, Lisa Harewood, a Barbados filmmaker, has written about the event in Shadow and Act.
This year 15 feature film projects from 10 countries were pitched and discussed at the inaugural Caribbean Film Mart (Cfm) in parallel with an academic symposium of university professors presenting on films, festivals and markets at the Hyatt Hotel. The unique mix of academics and professionals with upcoming filmmakers was vibrant, alive and upbeat, and we hope it continues to grow even though the financing from Acp Cultures which made this event possible may not continue to lend its support.
The 11 fiction feature projects and four doc projects (out of 100 submissions) selected from Guadaloupe, Cuba, Curaçao, Guyana, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Barbados, Dominican Republic and The Bahamas in development and pre-production were discussed over three days with 30 international film producers, sales agents and film funds coming from diverse countries in the Caribbean, Europe and North America.
The meetings resulted in professional relationships and partnerships that will enable the production and distribution of the participating projects going forward.
“We are pleased that a number of the projects are from ttff alumni, some of whom have gone through our Rbc Focus: Filmmakers’ Immersion, and others the Eave Producers’ training initiative which took place at ttff/14,” said Emilie Upczak, ttff Creative Director.
The selected projects were selected by the ttff, the Global Foundation of Democracy and Development from the Dominican Republic, the Association for the Development of Art Cinema and Practice from Guadeloupe, the Foundation of New Latin American Cinema in Cuba, and the Regional and International Festival of Cinema of Guadeloupe.
The project is co-financed by the Acp Cultures+ Program (Acp Group of States), funded by the European Union ( European Development Fund), and implemented by the Acp Group of States.
The projects were all most interesting visualized stories, and the filmmakers themselves, whether just beginning or with one or two features already under their belts, were all well prepared and professionally aligned with the more seasoned professionals in their objectives. Every one of the selected projects holds a promise of unique enchantments.
Jan Miller the international consultant and trainer specializing in film and television coproduction and coventuring who started Transatlantic Partners after she established Atlantic Partners, part of the Atlantic Film Festival in Nova Scotia, and who has delivered one of the top pitching and content development events for 20 years created a substantive and fun environment intensely devoted to the filmmakers.
The winner of the 15 selected Cfm projects was:
1. "Kidnapping Inc.” a fiction feature from Haiti to be directed by Bruno Mourral and produced by Gaethan Chancy and Remi Grelletty who both produced “Moloch Tropical” and “Murder in Pacot” and Raoul Peck the award winning director who has also produced five features and four docs.
Read more about Raoul Peck and his current production “The Young Karl Marx” on Shadow and Act.
“Kidnapping Inc.” has Canal + Antilles as a coproducer as well as private equity. They are still seeking other coproduction partners.
This twisted, dark comedy is about two delivery men working for an underground kidnapping corporation in Haiti. Doc and Zoe are scheduled to deliver a senator’s son worth $300,000. In the midst of their usual bickering, one kills the senator’s son accidentally. Trying to fix the mess they find themselves in, they stumble upon the senator’s son’s lookalike, which sets them on the craziest kidnapping of their lives.
Bruno Mourral is interested in developing the industry in Haiti as well as making movies. He says, “’Kidnapping Inc. is a dark comedy and satire of Haitian society waltzing between ‘City of God’ and ‘Pulp Fiction’. This film depicts the raw complexity and Haiti’s harsh day-to-day and pushes the viewer towards a better understanding of social issues such as color, sexism, machismo, social class discrimination and identity.
2. “The Dragon” is a fictional story from Trinidad and Tobago based upon the novel by the world renowned (but little known in the U.S.) Earl Lovelace and to be directed by his daughter Asha Lovelace. Having read the novel I can say that this story of a Trinidad community of African descendants which has inherited traits cultivated under slavery is immediately riveting. It brings another view of the radical political actions we in the U.S. witnessed in the 70s. Moreover, a musical composition written by a Trini composer who read the novel and was so enamored that he freely and without asking composed an entire opus makes this immediately into a transmedia project which is accessible and exploitable. The novel, the musical opus, and what I hope to see -- the movie -- all tell a tale of a people we can identify with but have never seen like this.
The book is a masterpiece and brings to mind “Black Orpheus” with its setting in the poverty-stricken Calvary Hill whose inhabitants’ lives are centered in the yearly Carnival. It also brings to mind John Steinbeck’s stories with struggling characters in the Salinas Valley.
Director Asha Lovelace’s debut short “George and the Bicycle Pump” premiered at Toronto International Film Festival. She co-wrote, produced and directed her first feature “Joebell and America” which screened at several film festivals and won for Best International Narrative Feature Film at the Women’s International Film Festival in Miami in 2008. She lectures on film at the University of the West Indies, founded and is festival director of Africa Film Trinidad and Tobago, a film festival dedicated to African cinema.
Producer Lesley-Anne Macfarlane has worked in the audio-visual industry in U.K. and Trinidad, graduated with an Ma in Cultural Policy and Management from City University, London and has produced several short films and music videos.
The story centers on Aldrick whose sole responsibility in life is to his dragon masquerade that he plays for Carnival. When he finds himself falling for Sylvia, the most desired young woman on the hill, he is unable to commit to her and she succumbs to the advances of an older man. This plummets Aldrick into a moment of blind rebellion that ends in tragedy and forces him to confront his role as dragon and man.
3. “ Sprinter” from Jamaica will be directed by Storm Saulter whose well-received first feature, the 2010 crime drama “Better Mus’ Come” received U.S. distribution through Ava du Vernay’s Affrm. It is being produced by Donald Ranvaud (“City of God”) who is well known and well loved on the international film circuit.
This fictional feature is set against the world of track and field – an area in which Jamaica has excelled for decades – and addresses urgent and poignant broader themes. “Those images of Rastas smoking ganja on the beach or the gunman from Kingston – it isn’t who we are,” Saulter told Jeremy Kay in a Screen interview.
In his interview with Screen, Jeremy also asked what has it been like pitching to dozens of people here.
“You kind of have to get to the soul of the thing and you see what people respond to. This is about meeting with people that can help with financing and also potentially sales agents and exploring co-production possibilities. Jamaica does not have a treaty with the U.S .but we have treaties with the U.K. and Canada. It’s this whole puzzle you have to put together. The responses have been positive.”
The film is about Akeem, a young Rastafarian, who surprisingly shatters the 200-metre high-school track record. He must make the national team tocompete at the World Youth Championships in Philadelphia if he wants a chance to reunite with his mother who has been living there illegally for ten years. Akeem’s overnight popularity and the sudden return of his estranged older brother disrupt his focus. Meanwhile, a scandal is brewing that threatens to derail his career before it’s even started.
4. “ Beauty Kingdom ” is a Dominican Republic project to be directed by Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas who will also produce along with Mónica De Moya. Guzmán and Cárdenas also worked together on "Sand Dollars" (2014) which premiered at Tiff in 2014, "Jean Gentil" (2010) which premiered in Venice in 2010 and "Cochochi" (2007).
This fictional feature takes place in a magical place in the Caribbean and is about the most expensive film of all time which is about to be shot. The Diva, a 70-year-old eccentric actress (played by Geraldine Chaplin), has arrived to star in the film. She finds herself surrounded by the absurdity that such a film production implies, as she rigorously prepares for her role. All the while, she senses the impending end of the world. Nevertheless, the film must go on.
5. “Doubles With Slight Pepper” is a fiction feature coproduction of Trinidad and Tobago and the U.S. to be directed by Ian Harnarine, produced by Ryan Silbert and exec produced by Spike Lee.
Ian Harnarine , a Trinidadian living in Canada has already won numerous awards for the short that this feature is based upon and has been working on this feature for several years. The film will go into production in Trinidad in November.
In Lisa Harewood’s interview for Shadow and Act , Ian said, "The Caribbean Film Mart was incredibly important in opening up the world (literally!) to the project. To meet face to face with people from Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, Norwegian South Film Fund, World Cinema Support etc makes the opportunities available to me very real."
Dhani, a young Trinidadian street vendor, struggles to support himself and his mother by selling doubles. When his estranged father, Ragbir, unexpectedly invites him to New York, Dhani must travel to America and decide if he will save his father’s life.
Best Short Film at the Toronto International Film Festival 2011
Best Live Action Short Drama at the Genie Awards 2012 (the Canadian Academy Awards)
Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film:
filmmakermagazine.com/news/people/ian-harnarine/
Watch the short Here.
6. “The Extraordinary Journey of Celeste Garcia” from Cuba will be the first fiction feature to be directed by Arturo Infante. His shorts have shown at home and abroad and have won several awards and he has written several produced scripts such as “Havana Eva” and “L’edad de la peseta”, films which Cuban film fans all know well. His producers,Claudia Calviño and Alejandro Tovar are two of Cuba’s top young producers whose film “Juan of the Dead” is Cuba’s most current best selling satire. Like that, this story highlights characters who must react to a surreal situation in an already slightly surreal country called Cuba.
Celeste is in her sixties and sells tickets at a planetarium. The discovery of an alien race shocks the world. Humans will send a spaceship carrying regular citizens to make contact with the alien civilization. Tired of her monotonous life, Celeste decides to apply for a spot on the ship and embark into the unknown.
What Celeste and the rest of the passengers on the ship seek in another galaxy is the Cuban dream of a better life.
Arturo speaks of his interest in characters, both real and as actors. “Growing up in a family with many women made me develop a special ‘ear’ towards the feminine. I spent my childhood in an old colonial-style house, hearing the voices of my mother, my grandmothers, aunts and neighbors. They all talking from one side to another, sharing their stories, dreams and secrets, but also their visions about the reality and politics of my country. That’s why I think the main character in my story must necessarily be a woman. I realize now that Celeste embodies all those voices of my childhood. Celeste’s character also represents my parents’ generation. A generation that gave their best years to build a utopian project that was diverted into paths that were not exactly the ones they dreamed of. A generation now marked by disenchantment and skepticism, a process of which I have been a constant witness. With my story I want to give Celeste a chance to travel to a new planet, the opportunity to see the rebirth of those fallen dreams of her youth.”
http://www.facebook.com/produccionesdela5taavenida
7. “The Fisherman’s Son” from Puerto Rico and Colombia will be directed by Edgar Deluque. Producer Annabelle Mullen from PR is a former entertainment attorney with several credits to her name. She presented this project about a transsexual running away from the city to his childhood home at a fishermen’s island after murdering a policeman. He must face his father whom he hasn’t seen in fifteen years and who doesn’t want anything to do with his transsexual child.
The writer-director, Edgar Deluque, is an emerging talent from Colombia.
8. “Hello Nicki” from Trinidad and Tobago will be directed by Miquel Galofré whose previous moving doc about songwriters who were in prison in Kingston, Jamaica, “Songs of Redemption”, showed at various festivals including Havana and Krakow. Aside from this Miquel has made six other feature docs This doc, produced by Jean Michel Gibert whose sequel to “Pan! Our Music Odyssey” called “ Re-Percussions! Our African Odyssey ” just won the award for Best Trinidad and Tobago Documentary Feature Film at ttff.
This documentary follows Shanice, a teenage girl from Trinidad, as she seeks to actualize her grand dream of making music and collaborating with Nicki Minaj, a Trinidadian born American rapper – the most popular musical personage in the world today. Shanice is a spirited soul living with cerebral palsy and has a unique way of viewing the world. She is keenly aware of the isolation her appearance has caused, but her personality remains bright, upbeat and hopeful.
http://www.miquelgalofre.com .
You can meet Shanice here: https://vimeo.com/136969025 Password: Shanice
9. “Papa Machete” from Haiti, Barbados and U.S. to be directed by Jonathan David Kane is based upon the short which screened at ttff. The producers, Jason Fitzroy Jeffers and Keisha Rae Witherspoon were discussing the doc as well as the fiction feature to be made. Many of the people they spoke with, including myself, thought the fiction feature would be more accessible, though perhaps a TV doc would also be possible with the footage they have made the 10 minute short with.
The story is fascinating as the machete was used as a weapon 200 years ago when Haitian slaves defeated Napoleon’s armies with the very tool they used to work the land. Papa Machete explores the esoteric martial art that emerged from this victory through the life and recent death of Alfred Avril, a poor farmer who was one of the art’s few remaining masters. With his passing, Avril’s two sons are confronted with loss, legacy and American dreams.
10. “Wind Rush” is conceived as a doc coproduction between Trinidad and Tobago and U.S. director-writer-producer Vashti Harrison lives in Atlanta, Geogia. Her parents are Trinis and she has a great love for Trinidad and its music. This is an experimental doc about Calypso music which serves a significant role in the Caribbean emigrant experience in London, which began in earnest in the 1950s. Calypso was the music of the minority, the voice of the other, and it helped to define the West Indian identity in England. Using the music of calypsonians Lord Beginner and Lord Kitchener as a road map to this journey of discovery and displacement, the film will focus on their homes both in Trinidad and London.
The criticism she received was about obtaining music clearances in U.K. when she herself is not a U.K. resident or citizen. Perhaps she needs to find a U.K. producer who can also access U.K. Funds. Her experimental films and docs have shown around the world at Rotterdam, Edinburgh, N.Y. and Havana Film Festivals. All of her work focuses into her Caribbean heritage and is quite evocative, artistic and well executed.
11. “Conch” from Curaçao will be directed and produced by German Gruber whose first film, urban drama, “Sensei Redenshon” was completed in 2013 and will be released in the Netherlands this fall. This fiction feature about the natural side of Curaçao is a road movie about a young boy who runs away from home after the loss of his mother. Searching for the message that he saw her whisper into a conch shell the night before her death, he seeks clues from the characters he meets along his desolate journey. Between nightmares of drowning and daydreams of becoming a musician, he eventually confronts his fear of the sea to find the answer.
12. “Green Days by the River” is a fiction feature set against the backdrop of rural Trinidad in 1952. A fifteen-year-old boy who has just moved to a village naively seeks the affection of two girls, an attractive rich Indian girl, and a more personable and accessible one. The ensuing triangle forces him to focus on becoming a man as he must make life enduring decisions.
Director Michael Mooleedhar has made several award winning shorts.Producer Christian James graduated in 2014 with an Mfa in Cretive Producing from Columbia College Chicago, has interned with K5 International during 2014 Cannes and participated in the 2015 Rotterdam Film Festival Lab.
13. “Potomitans : Women Pillars in Revolt” , a doc project from Guadeloupe will be directed by Bouchera Azzouz whose first documentary, “Nos Meres nos daronnes” (“Our Mothers”) aired this year on France 2 (France Televisions) and was one of its biggest audience hits. This is her second work on popular feminism. Producer Nina Vilus' short "Vivre” has won awards and their “Villa Karayib”, a 3 minute 30 second series with 140 episodes aired on Canal + Antilles. Laurence Lascary is coproducing.
This film is an exploratory journey into the heart of the everyday life of five Guadeloupean women who are considered “potomitans”, women who assume professional and familial responsibilities without the help of a man. Everything rests on the courage of these women, who are trying to emancipate themselves by claiming a new way of being a woman.
It is an Art & Vision Productions, De l’autre cote du periph (Dacp) and Canal + Antilles coproduction which Canal + will broadcast in the French Caribbean. 37% of the financing is secured through the Guadeloupe regional council, Agence national pour la cohesion social et l’egalite des chances (Asce), Ministry of French overseas territories. Apcag network of theaters in Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guyana along with Aubervilliers Theater in France will premiere the film.
14. “The Seawall” is a fiction project to be coproduced by Guyana and U.S.
Director Mason Richards says, “My intention for ‘The Seawall’ is to create a dramatic narrative set in Guyana, South America with simple characters navigating through complex issues within the Caribbean cultural context. It is also my intention to make a film that seeks to reconcile our Caribbean and non-Caribbean identities through the journey of my protagonist who returnes “home” to Guyana and is confronted with issues of his past that he has suppressed. The story needs to be told because many of us from the Caribbean diaspora struggle with “trans-national” identities, meaning we are from the Caribbean, however we’ve immigrated to other countries like the U.S. where we’ve adapted to a new dominant culture and way of life. With tht, there is a feeling of “dis-connect” as though we have left something behind, back “home” in the Caribbean, whether it’s family members, our cultural identity, or simply our childhood memories. It is also my intention to make an entertaining, quality film that highlights the beauty of the Caribbean through the stories and hearts of the characters.
The fiscal partner of this project is Frog (Friends and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Guyana), Verisimiltude in New York City. The executive producer C.R. Wooten has exec produced several film projects for TV and HBO and exec produced the short film, “The Seawall”.
The writer-director, Mason Richards, is an alumnus of Film Independent’s Project Involve, a recipient of Sony Pictures Diversity Fellowship 2012, winner of The Ainslie Alumni Achievement Award 2011 and Guyana’s 46th Independence Golden Arrowhead Award.
Producer Sohini Sengupta is an award-winning of creative director of theatrical campaigns, including “Birdman”, “12 Years a Slave”, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”, “Black Swan” and “Slumdog Millionaire”. She is a production team member of the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles and was named one of Glamour Magazine’s 35 under 35 Women Who Run Hollywood.
Malachi, a struggling young writer in Brooklyn, learns of his girlfriend’s pregnancy and returns to his birth country, Guyana, to sell off his inheritance. In Guyana, Malachi ends up confronting his estranged father who abandoned him as a child. Malachi gets closure, and makes decisions about the kind of father he would be to his unborn child.
15. “Epiphany” by Maria Govan who is a self-taught filmmaker from the island of New Providence in The Bahamas. When she was 18 she moved to L.A. and worked for four years on Hollywood sets. In 1999 she returned home, bought a digital camera and began making small guerilla-style local documentaries. In 2004 she moved to New York and began writing her first narrative script “Rain” which premiered in 2008 at the Toronto International Film Festival, won several awards and aired on Showtime to a strong audience response. Her second film “Play the Devil” was shot entirely in Trinidad in the spring of 2015 and she hopes it will premiere in the winter of 2016.
Producer Abigail Hadeed has worked with Caribbean crews on big budget commercials. She worked on the short “4am” in 2011 which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festval. In 2012 she produced an award winning feature doc “La Giata” and produced “Play the Devil” with Maria.
They are looking for coproducers and can offer a 35% rebate on Trinidadian spend with a 50% rebate on roles in key positions for films shot in Trinidad. Exterior and ocean environments can be shot in the Bahamas.
Set in the Bahamas — Mary, a loner with a passion for spear fishing and the sea, is forced to give up her room to her overbearing cousin’s girlfriend, an “illegal” colorful Cuban named Gabriel. When a love triangle develops and George realizes he’s been betrayed, the women are forced into the dark terrain of human smuggling.
Links to “Rain” (director’s previous work): Trailer
Link to Maria Govan’s Show Reel: https://vimeo.com/35611171
Other films in the program but exceeding the official number of 15 include
16. “Cargo” from The Bahamas, a fiction feature based upon the short film of Kareem Mortimer. Producer Trevite Willis has produced several films including the Lgbt feather “Children of God” with Kareem directing. Producer Alexander Younis now has a doc, “Brigidy Bram ” in post-production.
“Cargo”, based upon Kareem’s short “Passage”, is about a Bahamian fisherman whose life is slowly unraveling. After wasting his remaining money at a gambling house, he is approached by a security guard who suggests that Kevin supplement his income by using his vessel as a means to transport people illegally into the United States. Kevin leads scores of migrants on a treacherous, unsettling and perilous final journey.
17. “Scattered” reminded me of “Desperately Seeking Susan” in the story of an young uptight British woman who has her run-of-the-mill life disrupted when the Caribbean grandmother she barely knew leaves a request for her to scatter her ashes in Trinidad where a free-spirited cousin takes her on a wild road trip that changes her life forever.
The director-producer-cowriter, Karen Martinez, is a Trinidadian filmmaker based in London, U.K. She has worked extensively in the film world in U.K. and the Caribbean. In 2013 she wrote, produced and directed her frist narrative fiction “After Mas”. Her most recent film, “Dreams in Transit” is an essay-style documentary of a contemporary migrant reflcting on identity and the meaning of “home”.
18. “Unfinished Sentences” by writer-director-producer Mariel Brown, an award winning documentary director and founder of the creative and production company Savant. Her documentary films have been screened on television, at festivals and other special events around the world, most recently at the Pan African Film Festival and Clermont-Ferrand.
This is a story of a writer father and a filmmaker daughter who walks the line between adoration and disappointment, success and failure, race, family and art. When he dies, in her great grief she discovers his poetry and prose transcend death, allowing her to hear his voice again and to find a way back to her own self. For more information go to http://www.unfinishedsentencesfilm.com.
19. “Queen of Soca” by Kevin Adams
“’ Queen of Soca’ was inspired by my home base of Laventille, Trinidad and Tobago where the frustration of living a life of restricted opportunity is a narrative I observe often.“
“ Queen of Soca” is the story of Olivia, who lives in an impoverished community and is striving to make a better life for herself. Her life is full of struggles, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
The short version of “Queen of Soca”, entitled “No Soca No Life” premiered at Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival in 2012 and has been well received by movie goers and movie industry practitioners. “No Soca No Life” is currently available on Vimeo, Pay per view.
“We are now focused on the original goal of creating a blockbuster inspirational story for the world to enjoy, and using the Trinidad and Tobago culture as the vehicle for our message. On behalf of myself and my team, thank you for your interest in this project and we look forward to completing this journey with you !”
The Cfm was held from 24-27 September at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port of Spain, Trinidad. The ttff/15 took place from 15-29 September.
Cfm envisages the Caribbean -- home to the most genetically variegated people of the world -- as a whole whose varied stories will go out into the larger world (much like the Trinis themselves). Coming from islands which remind us of those planets described in Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ), the Caribbeanos gathered here in Trinidad to receive coaching and positive feedback to extend their reach into the rest of world. Our world, still divided along colonial and post-colonial color and class lines needs this idealistic and inspiring vision.
For more coverage of the event, Lisa Harewood, a Barbados filmmaker, has written about the event in Shadow and Act.
This year 15 feature film projects from 10 countries were pitched and discussed at the inaugural Caribbean Film Mart (Cfm) in parallel with an academic symposium of university professors presenting on films, festivals and markets at the Hyatt Hotel. The unique mix of academics and professionals with upcoming filmmakers was vibrant, alive and upbeat, and we hope it continues to grow even though the financing from Acp Cultures which made this event possible may not continue to lend its support.
The 11 fiction feature projects and four doc projects (out of 100 submissions) selected from Guadaloupe, Cuba, Curaçao, Guyana, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Barbados, Dominican Republic and The Bahamas in development and pre-production were discussed over three days with 30 international film producers, sales agents and film funds coming from diverse countries in the Caribbean, Europe and North America.
The meetings resulted in professional relationships and partnerships that will enable the production and distribution of the participating projects going forward.
“We are pleased that a number of the projects are from ttff alumni, some of whom have gone through our Rbc Focus: Filmmakers’ Immersion, and others the Eave Producers’ training initiative which took place at ttff/14,” said Emilie Upczak, ttff Creative Director.
The selected projects were selected by the ttff, the Global Foundation of Democracy and Development from the Dominican Republic, the Association for the Development of Art Cinema and Practice from Guadeloupe, the Foundation of New Latin American Cinema in Cuba, and the Regional and International Festival of Cinema of Guadeloupe.
The project is co-financed by the Acp Cultures+ Program (Acp Group of States), funded by the European Union ( European Development Fund), and implemented by the Acp Group of States.
The projects were all most interesting visualized stories, and the filmmakers themselves, whether just beginning or with one or two features already under their belts, were all well prepared and professionally aligned with the more seasoned professionals in their objectives. Every one of the selected projects holds a promise of unique enchantments.
Jan Miller the international consultant and trainer specializing in film and television coproduction and coventuring who started Transatlantic Partners after she established Atlantic Partners, part of the Atlantic Film Festival in Nova Scotia, and who has delivered one of the top pitching and content development events for 20 years created a substantive and fun environment intensely devoted to the filmmakers.
The winner of the 15 selected Cfm projects was:
1. "Kidnapping Inc.” a fiction feature from Haiti to be directed by Bruno Mourral and produced by Gaethan Chancy and Remi Grelletty who both produced “Moloch Tropical” and “Murder in Pacot” and Raoul Peck the award winning director who has also produced five features and four docs.
Read more about Raoul Peck and his current production “The Young Karl Marx” on Shadow and Act.
“Kidnapping Inc.” has Canal + Antilles as a coproducer as well as private equity. They are still seeking other coproduction partners.
This twisted, dark comedy is about two delivery men working for an underground kidnapping corporation in Haiti. Doc and Zoe are scheduled to deliver a senator’s son worth $300,000. In the midst of their usual bickering, one kills the senator’s son accidentally. Trying to fix the mess they find themselves in, they stumble upon the senator’s son’s lookalike, which sets them on the craziest kidnapping of their lives.
Bruno Mourral is interested in developing the industry in Haiti as well as making movies. He says, “’Kidnapping Inc. is a dark comedy and satire of Haitian society waltzing between ‘City of God’ and ‘Pulp Fiction’. This film depicts the raw complexity and Haiti’s harsh day-to-day and pushes the viewer towards a better understanding of social issues such as color, sexism, machismo, social class discrimination and identity.
2. “The Dragon” is a fictional story from Trinidad and Tobago based upon the novel by the world renowned (but little known in the U.S.) Earl Lovelace and to be directed by his daughter Asha Lovelace. Having read the novel I can say that this story of a Trinidad community of African descendants which has inherited traits cultivated under slavery is immediately riveting. It brings another view of the radical political actions we in the U.S. witnessed in the 70s. Moreover, a musical composition written by a Trini composer who read the novel and was so enamored that he freely and without asking composed an entire opus makes this immediately into a transmedia project which is accessible and exploitable. The novel, the musical opus, and what I hope to see -- the movie -- all tell a tale of a people we can identify with but have never seen like this.
The book is a masterpiece and brings to mind “Black Orpheus” with its setting in the poverty-stricken Calvary Hill whose inhabitants’ lives are centered in the yearly Carnival. It also brings to mind John Steinbeck’s stories with struggling characters in the Salinas Valley.
Director Asha Lovelace’s debut short “George and the Bicycle Pump” premiered at Toronto International Film Festival. She co-wrote, produced and directed her first feature “Joebell and America” which screened at several film festivals and won for Best International Narrative Feature Film at the Women’s International Film Festival in Miami in 2008. She lectures on film at the University of the West Indies, founded and is festival director of Africa Film Trinidad and Tobago, a film festival dedicated to African cinema.
Producer Lesley-Anne Macfarlane has worked in the audio-visual industry in U.K. and Trinidad, graduated with an Ma in Cultural Policy and Management from City University, London and has produced several short films and music videos.
The story centers on Aldrick whose sole responsibility in life is to his dragon masquerade that he plays for Carnival. When he finds himself falling for Sylvia, the most desired young woman on the hill, he is unable to commit to her and she succumbs to the advances of an older man. This plummets Aldrick into a moment of blind rebellion that ends in tragedy and forces him to confront his role as dragon and man.
3. “ Sprinter” from Jamaica will be directed by Storm Saulter whose well-received first feature, the 2010 crime drama “Better Mus’ Come” received U.S. distribution through Ava du Vernay’s Affrm. It is being produced by Donald Ranvaud (“City of God”) who is well known and well loved on the international film circuit.
This fictional feature is set against the world of track and field – an area in which Jamaica has excelled for decades – and addresses urgent and poignant broader themes. “Those images of Rastas smoking ganja on the beach or the gunman from Kingston – it isn’t who we are,” Saulter told Jeremy Kay in a Screen interview.
In his interview with Screen, Jeremy also asked what has it been like pitching to dozens of people here.
“You kind of have to get to the soul of the thing and you see what people respond to. This is about meeting with people that can help with financing and also potentially sales agents and exploring co-production possibilities. Jamaica does not have a treaty with the U.S .but we have treaties with the U.K. and Canada. It’s this whole puzzle you have to put together. The responses have been positive.”
The film is about Akeem, a young Rastafarian, who surprisingly shatters the 200-metre high-school track record. He must make the national team tocompete at the World Youth Championships in Philadelphia if he wants a chance to reunite with his mother who has been living there illegally for ten years. Akeem’s overnight popularity and the sudden return of his estranged older brother disrupt his focus. Meanwhile, a scandal is brewing that threatens to derail his career before it’s even started.
4. “ Beauty Kingdom ” is a Dominican Republic project to be directed by Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas who will also produce along with Mónica De Moya. Guzmán and Cárdenas also worked together on "Sand Dollars" (2014) which premiered at Tiff in 2014, "Jean Gentil" (2010) which premiered in Venice in 2010 and "Cochochi" (2007).
This fictional feature takes place in a magical place in the Caribbean and is about the most expensive film of all time which is about to be shot. The Diva, a 70-year-old eccentric actress (played by Geraldine Chaplin), has arrived to star in the film. She finds herself surrounded by the absurdity that such a film production implies, as she rigorously prepares for her role. All the while, she senses the impending end of the world. Nevertheless, the film must go on.
5. “Doubles With Slight Pepper” is a fiction feature coproduction of Trinidad and Tobago and the U.S. to be directed by Ian Harnarine, produced by Ryan Silbert and exec produced by Spike Lee.
Ian Harnarine , a Trinidadian living in Canada has already won numerous awards for the short that this feature is based upon and has been working on this feature for several years. The film will go into production in Trinidad in November.
In Lisa Harewood’s interview for Shadow and Act , Ian said, "The Caribbean Film Mart was incredibly important in opening up the world (literally!) to the project. To meet face to face with people from Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, Norwegian South Film Fund, World Cinema Support etc makes the opportunities available to me very real."
Dhani, a young Trinidadian street vendor, struggles to support himself and his mother by selling doubles. When his estranged father, Ragbir, unexpectedly invites him to New York, Dhani must travel to America and decide if he will save his father’s life.
Best Short Film at the Toronto International Film Festival 2011
Best Live Action Short Drama at the Genie Awards 2012 (the Canadian Academy Awards)
Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film:
filmmakermagazine.com/news/people/ian-harnarine/
Watch the short Here.
6. “The Extraordinary Journey of Celeste Garcia” from Cuba will be the first fiction feature to be directed by Arturo Infante. His shorts have shown at home and abroad and have won several awards and he has written several produced scripts such as “Havana Eva” and “L’edad de la peseta”, films which Cuban film fans all know well. His producers,Claudia Calviño and Alejandro Tovar are two of Cuba’s top young producers whose film “Juan of the Dead” is Cuba’s most current best selling satire. Like that, this story highlights characters who must react to a surreal situation in an already slightly surreal country called Cuba.
Celeste is in her sixties and sells tickets at a planetarium. The discovery of an alien race shocks the world. Humans will send a spaceship carrying regular citizens to make contact with the alien civilization. Tired of her monotonous life, Celeste decides to apply for a spot on the ship and embark into the unknown.
What Celeste and the rest of the passengers on the ship seek in another galaxy is the Cuban dream of a better life.
Arturo speaks of his interest in characters, both real and as actors. “Growing up in a family with many women made me develop a special ‘ear’ towards the feminine. I spent my childhood in an old colonial-style house, hearing the voices of my mother, my grandmothers, aunts and neighbors. They all talking from one side to another, sharing their stories, dreams and secrets, but also their visions about the reality and politics of my country. That’s why I think the main character in my story must necessarily be a woman. I realize now that Celeste embodies all those voices of my childhood. Celeste’s character also represents my parents’ generation. A generation that gave their best years to build a utopian project that was diverted into paths that were not exactly the ones they dreamed of. A generation now marked by disenchantment and skepticism, a process of which I have been a constant witness. With my story I want to give Celeste a chance to travel to a new planet, the opportunity to see the rebirth of those fallen dreams of her youth.”
http://www.facebook.com/produccionesdela5taavenida
7. “The Fisherman’s Son” from Puerto Rico and Colombia will be directed by Edgar Deluque. Producer Annabelle Mullen from PR is a former entertainment attorney with several credits to her name. She presented this project about a transsexual running away from the city to his childhood home at a fishermen’s island after murdering a policeman. He must face his father whom he hasn’t seen in fifteen years and who doesn’t want anything to do with his transsexual child.
The writer-director, Edgar Deluque, is an emerging talent from Colombia.
8. “Hello Nicki” from Trinidad and Tobago will be directed by Miquel Galofré whose previous moving doc about songwriters who were in prison in Kingston, Jamaica, “Songs of Redemption”, showed at various festivals including Havana and Krakow. Aside from this Miquel has made six other feature docs This doc, produced by Jean Michel Gibert whose sequel to “Pan! Our Music Odyssey” called “ Re-Percussions! Our African Odyssey ” just won the award for Best Trinidad and Tobago Documentary Feature Film at ttff.
This documentary follows Shanice, a teenage girl from Trinidad, as she seeks to actualize her grand dream of making music and collaborating with Nicki Minaj, a Trinidadian born American rapper – the most popular musical personage in the world today. Shanice is a spirited soul living with cerebral palsy and has a unique way of viewing the world. She is keenly aware of the isolation her appearance has caused, but her personality remains bright, upbeat and hopeful.
http://www.miquelgalofre.com .
You can meet Shanice here: https://vimeo.com/136969025 Password: Shanice
9. “Papa Machete” from Haiti, Barbados and U.S. to be directed by Jonathan David Kane is based upon the short which screened at ttff. The producers, Jason Fitzroy Jeffers and Keisha Rae Witherspoon were discussing the doc as well as the fiction feature to be made. Many of the people they spoke with, including myself, thought the fiction feature would be more accessible, though perhaps a TV doc would also be possible with the footage they have made the 10 minute short with.
The story is fascinating as the machete was used as a weapon 200 years ago when Haitian slaves defeated Napoleon’s armies with the very tool they used to work the land. Papa Machete explores the esoteric martial art that emerged from this victory through the life and recent death of Alfred Avril, a poor farmer who was one of the art’s few remaining masters. With his passing, Avril’s two sons are confronted with loss, legacy and American dreams.
10. “Wind Rush” is conceived as a doc coproduction between Trinidad and Tobago and U.S. director-writer-producer Vashti Harrison lives in Atlanta, Geogia. Her parents are Trinis and she has a great love for Trinidad and its music. This is an experimental doc about Calypso music which serves a significant role in the Caribbean emigrant experience in London, which began in earnest in the 1950s. Calypso was the music of the minority, the voice of the other, and it helped to define the West Indian identity in England. Using the music of calypsonians Lord Beginner and Lord Kitchener as a road map to this journey of discovery and displacement, the film will focus on their homes both in Trinidad and London.
The criticism she received was about obtaining music clearances in U.K. when she herself is not a U.K. resident or citizen. Perhaps she needs to find a U.K. producer who can also access U.K. Funds. Her experimental films and docs have shown around the world at Rotterdam, Edinburgh, N.Y. and Havana Film Festivals. All of her work focuses into her Caribbean heritage and is quite evocative, artistic and well executed.
11. “Conch” from Curaçao will be directed and produced by German Gruber whose first film, urban drama, “Sensei Redenshon” was completed in 2013 and will be released in the Netherlands this fall. This fiction feature about the natural side of Curaçao is a road movie about a young boy who runs away from home after the loss of his mother. Searching for the message that he saw her whisper into a conch shell the night before her death, he seeks clues from the characters he meets along his desolate journey. Between nightmares of drowning and daydreams of becoming a musician, he eventually confronts his fear of the sea to find the answer.
12. “Green Days by the River” is a fiction feature set against the backdrop of rural Trinidad in 1952. A fifteen-year-old boy who has just moved to a village naively seeks the affection of two girls, an attractive rich Indian girl, and a more personable and accessible one. The ensuing triangle forces him to focus on becoming a man as he must make life enduring decisions.
Director Michael Mooleedhar has made several award winning shorts.Producer Christian James graduated in 2014 with an Mfa in Cretive Producing from Columbia College Chicago, has interned with K5 International during 2014 Cannes and participated in the 2015 Rotterdam Film Festival Lab.
13. “Potomitans : Women Pillars in Revolt” , a doc project from Guadeloupe will be directed by Bouchera Azzouz whose first documentary, “Nos Meres nos daronnes” (“Our Mothers”) aired this year on France 2 (France Televisions) and was one of its biggest audience hits. This is her second work on popular feminism. Producer Nina Vilus' short "Vivre” has won awards and their “Villa Karayib”, a 3 minute 30 second series with 140 episodes aired on Canal + Antilles. Laurence Lascary is coproducing.
This film is an exploratory journey into the heart of the everyday life of five Guadeloupean women who are considered “potomitans”, women who assume professional and familial responsibilities without the help of a man. Everything rests on the courage of these women, who are trying to emancipate themselves by claiming a new way of being a woman.
It is an Art & Vision Productions, De l’autre cote du periph (Dacp) and Canal + Antilles coproduction which Canal + will broadcast in the French Caribbean. 37% of the financing is secured through the Guadeloupe regional council, Agence national pour la cohesion social et l’egalite des chances (Asce), Ministry of French overseas territories. Apcag network of theaters in Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guyana along with Aubervilliers Theater in France will premiere the film.
14. “The Seawall” is a fiction project to be coproduced by Guyana and U.S.
Director Mason Richards says, “My intention for ‘The Seawall’ is to create a dramatic narrative set in Guyana, South America with simple characters navigating through complex issues within the Caribbean cultural context. It is also my intention to make a film that seeks to reconcile our Caribbean and non-Caribbean identities through the journey of my protagonist who returnes “home” to Guyana and is confronted with issues of his past that he has suppressed. The story needs to be told because many of us from the Caribbean diaspora struggle with “trans-national” identities, meaning we are from the Caribbean, however we’ve immigrated to other countries like the U.S. where we’ve adapted to a new dominant culture and way of life. With tht, there is a feeling of “dis-connect” as though we have left something behind, back “home” in the Caribbean, whether it’s family members, our cultural identity, or simply our childhood memories. It is also my intention to make an entertaining, quality film that highlights the beauty of the Caribbean through the stories and hearts of the characters.
The fiscal partner of this project is Frog (Friends and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Guyana), Verisimiltude in New York City. The executive producer C.R. Wooten has exec produced several film projects for TV and HBO and exec produced the short film, “The Seawall”.
The writer-director, Mason Richards, is an alumnus of Film Independent’s Project Involve, a recipient of Sony Pictures Diversity Fellowship 2012, winner of The Ainslie Alumni Achievement Award 2011 and Guyana’s 46th Independence Golden Arrowhead Award.
Producer Sohini Sengupta is an award-winning of creative director of theatrical campaigns, including “Birdman”, “12 Years a Slave”, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”, “Black Swan” and “Slumdog Millionaire”. She is a production team member of the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles and was named one of Glamour Magazine’s 35 under 35 Women Who Run Hollywood.
Malachi, a struggling young writer in Brooklyn, learns of his girlfriend’s pregnancy and returns to his birth country, Guyana, to sell off his inheritance. In Guyana, Malachi ends up confronting his estranged father who abandoned him as a child. Malachi gets closure, and makes decisions about the kind of father he would be to his unborn child.
15. “Epiphany” by Maria Govan who is a self-taught filmmaker from the island of New Providence in The Bahamas. When she was 18 she moved to L.A. and worked for four years on Hollywood sets. In 1999 she returned home, bought a digital camera and began making small guerilla-style local documentaries. In 2004 she moved to New York and began writing her first narrative script “Rain” which premiered in 2008 at the Toronto International Film Festival, won several awards and aired on Showtime to a strong audience response. Her second film “Play the Devil” was shot entirely in Trinidad in the spring of 2015 and she hopes it will premiere in the winter of 2016.
Producer Abigail Hadeed has worked with Caribbean crews on big budget commercials. She worked on the short “4am” in 2011 which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festval. In 2012 she produced an award winning feature doc “La Giata” and produced “Play the Devil” with Maria.
They are looking for coproducers and can offer a 35% rebate on Trinidadian spend with a 50% rebate on roles in key positions for films shot in Trinidad. Exterior and ocean environments can be shot in the Bahamas.
Set in the Bahamas — Mary, a loner with a passion for spear fishing and the sea, is forced to give up her room to her overbearing cousin’s girlfriend, an “illegal” colorful Cuban named Gabriel. When a love triangle develops and George realizes he’s been betrayed, the women are forced into the dark terrain of human smuggling.
Links to “Rain” (director’s previous work): Trailer
Link to Maria Govan’s Show Reel: https://vimeo.com/35611171
Other films in the program but exceeding the official number of 15 include
16. “Cargo” from The Bahamas, a fiction feature based upon the short film of Kareem Mortimer. Producer Trevite Willis has produced several films including the Lgbt feather “Children of God” with Kareem directing. Producer Alexander Younis now has a doc, “Brigidy Bram ” in post-production.
“Cargo”, based upon Kareem’s short “Passage”, is about a Bahamian fisherman whose life is slowly unraveling. After wasting his remaining money at a gambling house, he is approached by a security guard who suggests that Kevin supplement his income by using his vessel as a means to transport people illegally into the United States. Kevin leads scores of migrants on a treacherous, unsettling and perilous final journey.
17. “Scattered” reminded me of “Desperately Seeking Susan” in the story of an young uptight British woman who has her run-of-the-mill life disrupted when the Caribbean grandmother she barely knew leaves a request for her to scatter her ashes in Trinidad where a free-spirited cousin takes her on a wild road trip that changes her life forever.
The director-producer-cowriter, Karen Martinez, is a Trinidadian filmmaker based in London, U.K. She has worked extensively in the film world in U.K. and the Caribbean. In 2013 she wrote, produced and directed her frist narrative fiction “After Mas”. Her most recent film, “Dreams in Transit” is an essay-style documentary of a contemporary migrant reflcting on identity and the meaning of “home”.
18. “Unfinished Sentences” by writer-director-producer Mariel Brown, an award winning documentary director and founder of the creative and production company Savant. Her documentary films have been screened on television, at festivals and other special events around the world, most recently at the Pan African Film Festival and Clermont-Ferrand.
This is a story of a writer father and a filmmaker daughter who walks the line between adoration and disappointment, success and failure, race, family and art. When he dies, in her great grief she discovers his poetry and prose transcend death, allowing her to hear his voice again and to find a way back to her own self. For more information go to http://www.unfinishedsentencesfilm.com.
19. “Queen of Soca” by Kevin Adams
“’ Queen of Soca’ was inspired by my home base of Laventille, Trinidad and Tobago where the frustration of living a life of restricted opportunity is a narrative I observe often.“
“ Queen of Soca” is the story of Olivia, who lives in an impoverished community and is striving to make a better life for herself. Her life is full of struggles, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
The short version of “Queen of Soca”, entitled “No Soca No Life” premiered at Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival in 2012 and has been well received by movie goers and movie industry practitioners. “No Soca No Life” is currently available on Vimeo, Pay per view.
“We are now focused on the original goal of creating a blockbuster inspirational story for the world to enjoy, and using the Trinidad and Tobago culture as the vehicle for our message. On behalf of myself and my team, thank you for your interest in this project and we look forward to completing this journey with you !”
The Cfm was held from 24-27 September at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port of Spain, Trinidad. The ttff/15 took place from 15-29 September.
- 10/7/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
I started working with Dp Martina Radwan about a year ago on the feature documentary, Mentor (addressing bullying and teen suicide in Mentor, Ohio) I further had the pleasure of working with her on a recent music video for the band Shearwater. It is a gift, as a director, to find a Dp who you can quickly fall into a shorthand with, creating your own visual language, and trusting in the collaborative process. Radwan and I found this with each other.
Her narrative work includes Flannel Pajamas, by Jeff Lipsky; Singapore Dreaming, one of the first Singaporean feature productions and the winner of several international awards; Rain, the first indigenous film of the Bahamas, produced and directed by Maria Govan; The Killing Floor, a thriller produced by Doug Liman & Avi Arad and the horror film Train, a Millennium Films production, both directed by Gideon Raff.
Her most recently-released documentaries include...
Her narrative work includes Flannel Pajamas, by Jeff Lipsky; Singapore Dreaming, one of the first Singaporean feature productions and the winner of several international awards; Rain, the first indigenous film of the Bahamas, produced and directed by Maria Govan; The Killing Floor, a thriller produced by Doug Liman & Avi Arad and the horror film Train, a Millennium Films production, both directed by Gideon Raff.
Her most recently-released documentaries include...
- 2/6/2012
- by Alix Lambert
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Sergio profiled this film last summer, June 2009, when it was announced that it would screen at the Chicago International Film Festival later in the fall (read that post Here). A trailer for it has surfaced, and the film is now officially on DVD and VOD, so you can check it out if you haven’t already.
Rain stars Cch Pounder, Irma P. Hall, Nicki Micheaux and Renel Brown, as the title character, Rain, a young Bahamian girl determined to reconcile with the mother who abandoned her when she was just a toddler, summoning the strength needed to find her own place in the world.
The film, shot in 2008, described as an “intimate family drama,” was written and directed by Maria Govan, her debut. It played the festival circuit in 2009, and, as I stated, is now available on DVD and VOD.
Check out the trailer below:...
Rain stars Cch Pounder, Irma P. Hall, Nicki Micheaux and Renel Brown, as the title character, Rain, a young Bahamian girl determined to reconcile with the mother who abandoned her when she was just a toddler, summoning the strength needed to find her own place in the world.
The film, shot in 2008, described as an “intimate family drama,” was written and directed by Maria Govan, her debut. It played the festival circuit in 2009, and, as I stated, is now available on DVD and VOD.
Check out the trailer below:...
- 8/6/2010
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
Tina Mabry's "Mississippi Damned," an independent American production, won the Gold Hugo as the best film in the 2009 Chicago International Film Festival, and added Gold Plaques for best supporting actress (Jossie Thacker) and best screenplay (Mabry). It tells the harrowing story of three black children growing up in rural Mississippi in circumstances of violence and addiction. The film's trailer and an interview with Mabry are linked at the bottom.
Kylee Russell in "Mississippi Damned"
The win came over a crowed field of competitors from all over the world, many of them with much larger budgets. The other big winner at the Pump Room of the Ambassador East awards ceremony Saturday evening was by veteran master Marco Bellocchio of Italy, who won the Silver Hugo as best director for "Vincere," the story of Mussolini's younger brother. Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Filippo Timi won Silver Hugos as best actress and actor,...
Kylee Russell in "Mississippi Damned"
The win came over a crowed field of competitors from all over the world, many of them with much larger budgets. The other big winner at the Pump Room of the Ambassador East awards ceremony Saturday evening was by veteran master Marco Bellocchio of Italy, who won the Silver Hugo as best director for "Vincere," the story of Mussolini's younger brother. Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Filippo Timi won Silver Hugos as best actress and actor,...
- 10/23/2009
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
Sophie Okonedo's new movie Skin has triumphed at the 17th Annual Pan African Film & Arts Festival Film Competition, scoring two major prizes.
The drama, based on the true story of a black woman born to white parents in apartheid South Africa, was awarded the Jury Favourite prize at the awards luncheon in Culver City, California on Monday.
The picture was also named Best Narrative Feature in the category voted for by moviegoers.
French film Cuba, An African Odyssey landed the Best Documentary Feature honour, Prince of Broadway was handed Best Narrative Feature by festival bosses and Maria Govan was handed the coveted Best Director-First Feature award for 2008 film Rain.
The drama, based on the true story of a black woman born to white parents in apartheid South Africa, was awarded the Jury Favourite prize at the awards luncheon in Culver City, California on Monday.
The picture was also named Best Narrative Feature in the category voted for by moviegoers.
French film Cuba, An African Odyssey landed the Best Documentary Feature honour, Prince of Broadway was handed Best Narrative Feature by festival bosses and Maria Govan was handed the coveted Best Director-First Feature award for 2008 film Rain.
- 2/17/2009
- WENN
The 20th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival was a huge success! The Opening Night Gala was well-attended, and there were many A-list celebrities including Clint Eastwood, Anne Hathaway, etc.
But it's all about the quality of films! And last night, the festival honored films around the world.
The Festival, held from January 6-19, 2009, screened 208 films from 73 countries, including 50 of the 67 foreign entries for this year.s Academy Awards®. Palm Springs. increasingly popular Festival continues to expand its diverse programming of quality independent and foreign films, setting the stage for the year.s film festival circuit.
Awards
This year.s Festival attendees selected Departures (Japan) directed by Yojiro Takita, as the Mercedes-Benz Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature. A failed cellist connects with his inner undertaker, his rural hometown, and his newly deceased father in this tonally eccentric, lushly scored, moving drama. The film is on the Academy Awards® shortlist...
But it's all about the quality of films! And last night, the festival honored films around the world.
The Festival, held from January 6-19, 2009, screened 208 films from 73 countries, including 50 of the 67 foreign entries for this year.s Academy Awards®. Palm Springs. increasingly popular Festival continues to expand its diverse programming of quality independent and foreign films, setting the stage for the year.s film festival circuit.
Awards
This year.s Festival attendees selected Departures (Japan) directed by Yojiro Takita, as the Mercedes-Benz Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature. A failed cellist connects with his inner undertaker, his rural hometown, and his newly deceased father in this tonally eccentric, lushly scored, moving drama. The film is on the Academy Awards® shortlist...
- 1/19/2009
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
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