CineLit, a celebration of film

CineLit is an innovative hybrid of film and literature and one of the highlights of the eight annual TT literary festival, the NGC Bocas Lit Fest.

Thirty-one films from over 22 countries, including 17 films in Spanish and Portuguese, all subtitled, and ranging from award-winning feature films based on the work of some of Latin America’s greatest writers, to children’s animations and stirring documentaries about contemporary life. All free, with a choice of seeing them at UWI, St Augustine or at NALIS, Port of Spain between April 16 to 29.

Comedy, tragedy, romance are all part of the CineLit mix, plus another chance to see two memorable films in English: the prize-winning Green Days by the River, directed by Trinidadian Michael Mooledhar and adapted for the big screen from the popular Michael Anthony 1950s coming-of-age novel; and in collaboration with Green Screen the Environmental Film Festival, Death by a Thousand Cuts, a striking documentary that tells the story of the unending struggle between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, this time over the illicit exploitation of the remaining forest for charcoal that Haitians depend on but which has lead to severe deforestation. Migration of Caribbean people and its effect is one of the themes of the 2018 festival, and the movement of music with its practitioners as they travelled to escape or find work around the Caribbean basin is a remarkable story. Ferguson is a documentary about Walter Ferguson, the King of Calypso from Limon in Costa Rica where English-speaking “caribeños” settled and their music took root. In a panel discussion that follows the screening on April 27, Rudolph Ottley, author of Ambataila Women: The Untold Story in Calypso from Chanterelle to Calypsonian 1838-2014, discusses the annual Caribbean calypso festival in Limon with Maria Nunes, the photographer who is archiving TT’s cultural heritage.

Having its world premiere is a series of films specially produced in collaboration with international partners in an NGC Bocas Lit Fest initiative. Pacific Voices brings together six poets from around the world together with six film makers who interpret their work in short films. From Trinidad and Tobago award-winning director Maya Cozier teams up with Kayo Chingonyi from the UK, and multi-prizewinning poet Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné has her work interpreted by Puleng Langa Sturart from South Africa.

Wayne Brown was a journalist and writer whose name still resonates with many younger Caribbean writers, having mentored several of them in his native Trinidad and Tobago, and in Jamaica where he later lived. His filmmaker daughter Mariel Brown’s new film Unfinished Sentences brings the private life of this touchstone literary father into focus and sheds new light on his relationship with the own daughters.

Unlike the other CineLit films being screened free of charge at NALIS, the TT premiere of Unfinished Sentences will be screened at the Central Bank Auditorium, Port of Spain to include a welcome cocktail reception on April 26 at 6.30 pm. Like Green Days by the River, there will be only one screening. All other films receive repeat screenings.

A full CineLit film programme is at: www.bocaslitfest.com.

CineLit is a collaboration between the Latin American embassies, Spain, UWI and the NGC Bocas Lit Fest. It is part of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest. Title sponsor is the National Gas Company, Lead sponsor is First Citizens, Main sponsors are the ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts and One Caribbean Media. Massy Foundation and UWI are sponsors.