TT films for SVG first film festival

FIVE TT films will be featured next month at the Hairouna Film Festival (HFF), the first festival of its kind in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

The local films to be featured are The Deliverer by Paul Pryce, Breaking the Cycle and Songs of Redemption by Miquel Galofre, After Mas by Karen Martinez and Fire Queen by Damian Marcano. A total of 30 films will be screened during the festival, which will be held from March 22-30.

Other films include narrative features Better Mus' Come (Jamaica), Bad Lucky Goat (Colombia) and the shorts Black Doll (St Vincent and the Grenadines), Unexpectedly Incredible (St Vincent and the Grenadines/Barbados) and Sugar (Jamaica).

The festival is titled after St Vincent and the Grenadines' indigenous name "as an important objective of the festival is to bring Vincentians closer to their culture, history and collective Caribbean roots" the festival organisers said in a document.

"At this moment an immense wave of creativity is sweeping across the Caribbean. The community of Caribbean filmmakers is steadily growing, quality of work is progressively improving, new festivals are emerging, more and more opportunities for funding are becoming available. We are in the nascent stages of what will likely become a flourishing Caribbean film industry.

"HFF aims to bring St Vincent and the Grenadines into this movement that is occurring across the region. We hope that it will help to inspire, educate and motivate Vincentian filmmakers. An important objective of this festival is to diversify films available to the Vincentian population. The festival will screen Caribbean films exposing Vincentians not only to an alternative experience to Hollywood, but an alternative specifically rooted in Caribbean culture. This is important because we know that representation matters."

The festival director is Aiko Roudette, a Vincentian filmmaker who works primarily in video editing and videography. The festival is being held in partnership with Third Horizon, a Miami-based Caribbean filmmaking collective and media company.