TT Film Festival to stream 10 free Carnival-themed films

TT Carnival may have been formally cancelled, but the TT Film Festival (TTFF) is hoping that a week of free, festival-themed films will help inspire the Carnival spirit.

The festival will stream its WatchAMovieOnUs Carnival Edition of ten films (a mix of documentaries and dramas, both shorts and feature-length) as well as a panel discussion from February 7-14.

The films are: No Bois Man No Fraid, Mystic Fighters, Jab! The Blue Devils of Paramin, Play the Devil, Bazodee, After Mas, The Dying Swan, Paradise Lost, and Pan! Our Music Odyssey.

The TTFF is run by non-profit organisation Filmco and Filmco interim executive director Mariel Brown spoke with Newsday about the new free-streaming series and the importance of celebrating Carnival.

She explained the Carnival edition is the third in the WatchAMovieOnUs series after the first, which ran from March-April last year and a second which ran from May-July. Brown said the response to both editions was phenomenal and there were approximately 30,000 views combined. She added this gave TTFF the courage to hold the 2020 edition of the annual TTFF online.

"One of the things we want to do is to find as many ways as we can to help filmmakers earn some money. With lockdowns and with covid the industry has been hit very, very hard."

She noted TTFF has been running Carnival-themed screenings for many years and at times they were held for two to three days in the lead-up to Carnival.

"We wanted to have a Carnival event. When the Government said it was 'cancelling' formal Carnival, we just thought, 'How can you cancel Carnival?' Carnival is intrinsic to Trinidadianness.

"You can't really cancel Carnival. You can't cancel a part of the TT persona. It is up to us as creative people and problem-solvers to find ways to celebrate Carnival almost in defiance of everything that is going on in the world."

She said TTFF then sought to hold an online Carnival screening series. She recalled the festival approached the National Gas Company (NGC), which sponsored the two previous editions of WatchAMovieOnUs, and it was very supportive. She explained that TTFF wants to be able to pay filmmakers screening fees and therefore a sponsor is required.

"Because we had already established the brand WatchAMovieOnUs we found a lovely way to offer films for free to audiences whilst getting filmmakers paid. And we are going to hold on to that."

She said the TTFF had already figured out the technology last year and how to reach people.

"We realised there was an audience. And with so many people all over the world missing Trinidad Carnival this year, not just at home but everywhere, we felt that people would want to celebrate and want to have some sort of experience that spoke to Carnival."

The two previous editions of WatchAMovieOnUS were restricted to viewers in the Caribbean region, but the new Carnival Edition is open to all audiences internationally.

"We got a lot of buff from people in the diaspora who felt we had forgotten them. We had not, but you have to realise screening to a world audience means paying more for screening fees, because it is reducing the filmmakers' capacity to earn future revenue."

She explained that filmmakers cannot show a film to everyone in the world the first time it is screened, as that would destroy the film's future and its ability to get into film festivals and reach distributors.

"The perception is that you would have shown the film to too many people, so what is the point of distributing and showing it at festivals? It is an unfortunate problem with the film-festival circuit. The truth is, even if a film is seen by 5,000 people, it does not mean it cannot be watched again and that there aren't other audiences it can reach."

She explained that everyone who screens a film wants to have it new and exclusive and unique. She noted that with at TTFF, 90 per cent of the content is new work, so it would be unfair to screen to a global audience and therefore diminish the festival life of the film.

And what about the ten films in the Carnival Edition? Brown explained these films have been seen and been in the world for several years. She recalled TTFF made the argument to NGC that it would like to offer higher screening fees to offset the fact that people as far away as Morocco can watch the films.

"Caribbean people and Trinis are everywhere. People have been writing to us from Mauritius and Australia saying they are so excited to see these films. It's a wonderful thing to be able to do."

On the selection of the films, Brown said the TTFF wanted to build on the days of Carnival chronologically.

"Loosely speaking, we start with stickfighting then go on to blue devils, and then to crescendo with mas and calypso and soca."

She added that they had to work with people who had their films available digitally and were able to move quickly. They wanted to include another film but it was taking too long to organise so they had to move ahead without it.

She said they also wanted to work with people who have been stalwarts of Carnival coverage, such as award-winning documentarian Christopher Laird who has been recording Carnival for decades.

"It was a real pleasure to work with him. He has been fiercely loyal to Carnival coverage."

Laird is also the director of three documentaries featured in the series: No Bois Man No Fraid, Paradise Lost, and The Dying Swan.

Brown noted on February 10 as part of the series there will be a panel discussion, Documenting Carnival, via Zoom and the TTFF Facebook page, on the challenges, joys and importance of documenting the festival. It will be moderated by Carnival researcher Ray Funk and will include Laird as well as photographers (Mark Lyndersay and Maria Nunes), filmmakers (Play the Devil director Maria Govan and Queen of Soca director Kevin Adams), and Advance Dynamics CEO Camille Parsons, whose company has been documenting Carnival for years. Brown said people can pose their questions during the panel discussion on the Facebook page.

"It will be a really interesting discussion particularly at this moment when the actual archive of Carnival the National Carnival Commission has access to is virtually non-existent. The fact that a national institution does not have a significant Carnival archive is a tragedy. Thank goodness for the people who have been doing the work of their own volition."

She hoped the series would make people happy.

"I hope it makes them feel the Carnival spirit. I hope it reminds audiences that Carnival is in us and is of us. And I hope it reminds them that it is imperative that we document Carnival as filmmakers and as photographers and as writers."

For more info on WatchAMovieOnUs Carnival Edition visit the TTFF Facebook page.