If we recast the question, substituting the tree with “a Caribbean story” then hearing and seeing take on particular significance. If a Caribbean story unfolds and no one hears it or sees it, does the story make a sound? Does its plot make a note? Are its characters, settings and themes visible? Caribbean films surely enunciate stories but the film festival that commits its efforts to Caribbean films has an important role to play. The use value of Caribbean film festivals – that is, the function of Caribbean film festivals – lie in their capacity to facilitate a seeing and hearing of Caribbean narratives, to make it possible for Caribbean sights and sounds to have impressions on the eyes and ears of audiences, to offer up Caribbean sights and sounds to perception and interpretation, to present Caribbean sights and sounds so that we may turn them over in our minds, think about them, consider them, contemplate them, mull them over, reflect upon them and interrogate them.
Caribbean cinema may be young but it is definitely developing. Its growth requires not only considerations of funding and production but also promotion and dissemination.Caribbean cinema may be young but it is definitely developing Outlets for showcasing Caribbean screen works or the means for getting Caribbean stories seen and heard are important concerns for producers and directors with a finished product in their hands. The development of Caribbean cinema, therefore, comes with a number of film festivals devoted to screening Caribbean narratives. Festivals include the Latin American and Caribbean Film Festival, the CaribbeanTales Film Festival, the Bridgetown Film Festival, Flashpoint Film Festival and the St Barth Film Festival.
One such festival was held recently. The Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (www.trinidadandtobagofilmfestival.com) took place from September 22 to October 5, 2010. It’s theme: “You’re in Focus,” appellated or directly addressed a particular audience: Caribbean people. Now in its fifth year of promoting Caribbean cinema, the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (ttff) screens films made by Caribbean people, by persons of the Diaspora, by international filmmakers who have made films about the Caribbean as well as films from and about the coastal Caribbean including parts of Latin America. At the press conference for this year’s event, founder and festival director Bruce Paddington declared: “We need to see our own stories.” With films from and about the Caribbean, “we can hear from our Caribbean brothers…we can note their expressions” added Paddington. His statements zoom in on seeing and hearing as necessary activities in the process of the unfolding of Caribbean narratives. The ttff allowed audiences to be a part of that unfolding process as the festival presented over sixty stories seen and heard on the big screen this year, including such film works as: “Moloch Tropical” (Haiti/France), “Why do Jamaicans Run so Fast? (Jamaica/Spain), “The Wind Journeys” (Colombia), “Linha De Passe (Brazil), “Seventeen Colours and a Sitar” (Trinidad and Tobago), “Children of God” (Bahamas) and “Sugar” (Dominican Republic/USA). The festival facilitated seeing and hearing experiences at various locations including movie theatres and open-air screenings.
Through a partnership with a cable television provider, the ttff will also bring Caribbean stories to the small screen. “Every film festival is extremely important: small, medium, large, if you are a filmmaker – it’s important to have your work get out there. The Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival is a unique festival. There’s no other like it that focuses on the stories of people from the region” said Venezuelan filmmaker Haik Gazarian who spoke at a filmmakers’ panel organised by the ttff.
The screening or broadcasting of such a large number of films about the Caribbean, for Caribbean audiences, does more than counterbalance the superabundance of foreign films shown in the Caribbean region. The screening of films about The screening of films about the Caribbean opens up Caribbean stories to Caribbean perception or awarenessthe Caribbean opens up Caribbean stories to Caribbean perception or awareness. Caribbean film festivals facilitate films, which – to use Barbadian author George Lamming’s words here – “return the [Caribbean] society to ideas of experience which remain largely invisible between citizen and citizen in the normal course of [living] together.” Caribbean film festivals create seeing and hearing avenues for films, which “return the [Caribbean] society to itself by letting us see the society talking to each other, about each other.”*
Festivals like that of the ttff, therefore, make Caribbean experiences and stories visible and audible, especially for Caribbean people. Such festivals ensure that whether a Caribbean story falls on a balmy night in the Dominican Republic or it falls on a Carnival Tuesday morning in downtown Port-of-Spain, that story can make a sound for Caribbean people in the midst of a forest of other tales.
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Image courtesy artist Christopher Cozier and the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival
(*George Lamming delivered the Keynote Address at The Best of CaribbeanTales Film Festival, which was held in Barbados in February 2010)
Image caption: Detail from “Now Showing” the official image of the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival 2010. Image created by artist Christopher Cozier. Visit Cozier’s website to see the full image and read his notes about the artwork (www.christophercozier.blogspot.com)
