“Creating Our-Story over His-Story”

I love movies. I especially love local movies. For film lovers like me, Movie Towne has been more exciting than usual over the past couple of weeks. The third annual Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival have been running primarily at Movie Towne and across the country. The film industry is one of the strategic industries’ special focus as we continue our efforts to diversify away from energy.

The Film Festival was established in 2006, with headline sponsorship from the Trinidad and Tobago Film Company. But this year, the Tourism Development Company became an important sponsor, as the festival establishes itself as a key cultural event. Also among the list of supporters is FLOW, Columbus Communications Trinidad Limited, which has committed sponsorship over the next three years.

So we have the state working together with the private sector to help ‘develop innovative people’ and ‘enabling competitive business’ – very Vision 2020.

One of my favorite all-time films is actually a local one, Raoul Pantin’s ‘Bim’ (1974) – too bad they did not show it again this year. But the film that I enjoyed the most this year was ‘Wrestling with the Angels: An Exploration of Caribbeanness.’ It’s by Marsha Pearce, a first-time documentary filmmaker and Cultural Studies Ph.D. candidate at UWI. FATCA Banks Singapore

The documentary highlighted television as the dominant media and then sought to explore the impact (of the mainly American content) on Caribbean identity. It used the ‘music video’ as a case study and questions the impact of the music videos on the audience and but the audience on the videos. It may sound intense but trust me – it was as entertaining as it was insightful.

There are 2 things that I enjoyed about this documentary. Firstly, it validated those of us who see ourselves st Trinbagoniaand as Caribbean people – that regional identity. Secondly, it recognizes film as giving us greater opportunity to tell ‘our-story’ as opposed to just ‘his-story’ – to help find our own unique ‘voice’. So we get to do we own ting!

Looking closely at music videos, the Directors that Marsha interviewed helped open my eyes. One of the local Directors interviewed in the documentary was Eniola Adelekan. He sees Dancehall and Passa Passa in particular, as a ‘resurgence of suppressed Tribal Memory’ by the African diaspora. Eniola is adamant that the similarity with East African art forms is hard to ignore. Ras Kassa, a Jamaican Director goes further to speak of film’s ability to ‘archive’ aspects of our culture – not just music and dance but even historical landmarks such as old buildings. There is more on Marsha’s website – http://www.caribbeanculturalstudies.com

Media is evolving. For a number of reasons, film making is arguably now more accessible than ever for up and coming artists. For those wanting to make films, there is support through the Trinidad and Tobago Film Company – which has programmes such as Feature Film Programme and the Production Assistance and Script Development programme. For those wanting to study film making, there are courses at UWI. Of course, GATE means that the state covers the tuition fees, and for some like student-film maker Marsha Pearce, UWI has bursaries to help students make films.  Marsha won the Rhodes Trust Rex Nettleford Cultural Studies Fellowship (an annual award offered to Caribbean nationals seeking support for cultural projects).  UWI also offers research grants to help students fund their projector artists do so much good that help make a positive difference within the wider community. For me, supporting our artists is part of what Vision 2020 is all about.

Note: The above reference link was live on December 2010, but it has since been taken down.