| |
 |
|
Caribbean Film Corner |
Written by : Soca News
Location : United Kingdom
Photograph By : Dorothee Thibault for Portobello Film Festival
Posted : Oct 13, 2009 : 12:30:23 AM |
|
September 16th and 17th saw the inaugural Caribbean Film Corner as part of the annual Portobello Film Festival. The festival used to run in August, prior to Carnival, but has now moved to September - after all the mas and mayhem have departed and left the area otherwise quiet and colourless.
A contrasting facet of culture, the festival is spread across three local venues: the Inn on the Green, Westbourne Studios and the Tabernacle in Powis Square, now part of Carnival Village. The latter was, aptly, the venue for Caribbean Film Corner, co-ordinated by Neigeme Glasgow-Maeda and Marc Woods. Their aim is to showcase Caribbean culture, namely film and its creators, from across the region and in all its languages: French, Spanish, English and Dutch. Simultaneously, they hope to promote the region as being economically viable for film development investment.
The first night was dedicated to the ‘short’: films from one to 25 minutes long, from directors across the Caribbean. The most talked about (and much acclaimed) was Trinidadian Jimmel Daniel’s The Power of the Vagina, which aimed to explore and understand the myths surrounding female sexuality and its perceived inherent power - all from a Trinidadian perspective. Daniel is still a UWI film student, having made his first trip to the UK for the festival, so is a perfect candidate for the showcasing in the UK of emerging Caribbean talent. His next project, he says, will turn the tables on the men.
The shortest of the films were both animation, one a comedy from Dominican Republic, a narrated job application for ‘the best job in the world’ by Gabriel Lora, and the other Sunfly by Wendel McShine, which was visually stunning, rendering irrelevant that the words were accessible only to those versed in Spanish. There was another animation by McShine, this time a music video, also beautiful and absorbing. Of intense dramatic impact was Cold Dead Hands by Kaz Ové, a tale of violence told from the perspective of the gun; another powerful story, in French this time, was Olivier Ozier Lafontaine’s Apocalypse.
In documentary, topics were wide-ranging. El Regreso Way was the story, told in her own words, of an émigré from Dominican Republic to the U.S.A. and her tenacity in the face of adversity, her honesty when tempted with the ease of ill-gotten gain. Reunion, by Frances-Anne Solomon, was an illumination of the rôle of some 300 Caribbean women conscripted into the British army during World War Two. Event organiser Neigeme Glasgow-Maeda’s The Faces of the Slave Trade is an examination of the meaning of the bicentennial of the abolition of slavery to the descendants of slaves in Britain today, told with the novel device of non-talking heads paired with disembodied voices.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
