6th Edition of Travelling Caribbean Film Showcase

6th Edition of Travelling Caribbean Film Showcase

Dedicated to Caribbean Culture

11 to 14 of September, 2014.

Grenada Trade Centre

Thursday, September 11th ́

7:00 pm Yo soy del son a la salsa / I’am from Son to Salsa (Cuba) Special presentation

by the Director of the film

Director: Rigoberto Lopez, Date of production: 1997, Length: 90 min.

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: Testimony on Cuban popular music from its origins to the present.

Offered for the first time the history of Caribbean dance music told by its own

protagonists.

8: 40 pm MAKING HISTORY (Jamaica)

Directors: Karen D. McKinnon and Caecilia Tripp.

Date of production: 2008, Length: 10 min.

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: Making History is a short, lyrical film written and directed by Karen D.

McKinnon and Caecilia Tripp. The film stars Edouard Glissant, one of the most

important Caribbean writers in history who was nominated for a Nobel prize in

literature, and Linton Kwesi Johnson, father of ‘dub poetry’. The two passionate

poets debate identity politics, particularly how slavery affected modernity in

general, and the contemporary Caribbean Diaspora in particular. Glissant and

Johnson try to differentiate between European immigrant groups who came to

America, and Caribbean immigrant groups who moved to Europe and explore

what those differences mean for those who identify as Caribbean.

8:50 pm Rumbero de Nacimiento – Rumbero by Birth (Cuba)

Director: Angel Alderete, Date of production: 2012, Length: 25 min.

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: All rumba tradition from generation to generation.

9:15 pm Tengo Talento “El niño Jesús”‐ I have Talent “Jesus Kid” (USA)

Director: Eli Jacobs Fantauzzi, Date of production: 2013, Length: 13 min.

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: Julito Padrón is an excellent Cuban musician; a trumpet player

teaches us trough Jesus Anduz, a 14 year old boy that Cuban musical richness,

as heritage is kept by the new generations.

Friday September 12th

7:00 pm Calypso Rose: The lioness of the jungle. (Trinidad and Tobago)

Director: Pascale Obolo, Date of production: 2010, Length: 85 min.

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: Calypso Rose is an ambassador of Caribbean music. Living legend

of Calypso music, she is a charismatic character often compared to the great

Soul singers such as Aretha Franklin. She did a reprise of her famous song “I

Say a Little Prayer for You”. Or Miriam Makeba, with who she will sing “Voodoo

Lay Loo” in the 1980’s. This music, in its’ rebellious and mocking style, is

Trinidad & Tobago’s soul, ex English colony, located in the Caribbean sea. Born

in the village of Bethel in Tobago in 1940, she has been singing since the age

of 15 years and hasn’t stopped spreading the daily tales of her native island,

on the world stages, with an inbred energy and a contagious love for life. IN

1978, she will become the first woman to be crowned "Calypso Queen" during

Trinidad's famous carnival, (which after her win, was changed to the title of

“Calypso Monarch”). During her career, she wrote more than 800 songs and

recorded 25 albums, making her the uncontested diva of Calypso.

8: 35 pm Recordando el mamoncillo ‐ Remembering the mamoncillo tree (USA)

Director: Pamela Sporn, Date of production: 2006, Length: 15 min.

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: Every second Sunday of July from the 1960s through the early

2000s, hundreds of Cubans and lovers of Cuban music assembled at the

Bohemian Beer Garden in Queens for the Recordando el Mamoncillo festival.

Remembering the Mamoncillo gives viewers a taste of that joy. The festival

was hosted by el Club Cubano Interamericano and modeled after a dance that

many of the club’s members had attended in Cuba at the Cerveceria Tropical.

The history and cultural importance of the Recordando el Mamoncillo festival

and El Club Cubano is brought to life by dance scenes, testimonies of long‐time

members of the club and musical performances by Chico Alvarez y his Palo

Monte, Son Sublime, the Charanga All‐Stars, and Orquesta Broadway.

8: 50 pm Rumbos de la Rumba: Parada Central Park – Rumba roads (Mexico)

Director: Berta Jottar, Date of production: 2012, Length: 30 min.

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: Experimental documentary about the essence of Afro‐Cuban rumba

in its public demonstration in New York. Combining ethnographic and forum

sequences, it captures the internal relations of the circle (dialogue, seduction,

conflict ...) and the struggle between the community and the law.

Saturday, September 13th

4:00 pm Young Explorers Caribbean ‐ Point Fortin (Trinidad and Tobago)

Directed by Lorraine O'Connor, Date of production: 2006, Length: 18 min.

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: Young Explorers of the Caribbean is a television series in which a

group of young people makes a great discovery in Trinidad and Tobago to learn

about the culture, beauty and the characteristics of each community they visit

through the eyes of children in the area. The programs appeal to young and

not so young as they are full of fun, educational brushstrokes and beautiful

landscapes. The children are accompanied in his adventures from 2 animated

characters; Suni Caracol and Fredo Frog. Point Fortin is one of the oldest cities

in the country. Is located on the southwest coast of Trinidad. On the way to

Point Fortin, passed by the famous Pitch Lake in La Brea, the largest of the

three natural asphalt lakes in the world. In Point Fortin, the Young Explorers

meet some very talented children and learn to play the steelpan, sing in a choir

and visiting the city.

4:20 pm Atiba Williams (Trinidad and Tobago)

Directed by Bruce Paddington / Christopher Laird, Date of production: 2000,

Length : 7 min.

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: With just 9 years old Atiba Williams is the youngest musical arranger

who had a steelband in the first steelband competition "Panorama". This film is

a look at a day in his life, from home to school, to the performance of the assay.

4:30 pm 20 Años/ 20 Years

Director: Barbaro J. Ortiz, Date of production:2010, Length: 15 min.

Genre: Short animate

Synopsis: A woman lives grappled to a happy past, but her present is very

different. 20 years of indifference and mistreatment had challenged the love of

this person. In order to get the attention of her husband, she‘ll try even the

4:45 pm Brooklyn Racine (Haiti/USA)

Director: Jeremy Robins/ Magaly Damas, Date of production: 2006, Length: 12

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: This documentary (a short version feature‐length doc “The Other

Side of the Water”) explores what happens when a group of young immigrants

take a voodoo‐inspired walking music from the hills of Haiti and reinvent it on

the streets of Brooklyn.

5:00 pm Al son de Miss Lizzie (Nicaragua)

Director: Ileana Lacayo, Date of production: 2010, Length: 18 min.

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: Documentary about Elizabeth Nelson Forbes life. She tells us of her

childhood, youth and work for cost dance. The audiovisual goes all over her life

and colorful world of Creole rhythms, of the Caribbean in Nicaragua.

5:30 pm Cuban Roots/Bronx Stories (USA)

Director: Pamela Sporn, Date of production: 2000, Length: 57 min.

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: Cuban Roots/Bronx Stories highlights the historical journey of an

American family, from Jamaica, to Cuba, to the Bronx, revealing that the

Cuban‐American experience is more diverse, racially and ideologically, than

we are often led to believe. Diana, Ruben, and Pablo reveal stories of growing

political awareness, overcoming the dangers of the streets, and coming into

their own as Afro‐Latinos in the 1960s and 70s.

Sunday, September 14th

3:30 pm Eyerí, a Musician with Magic (Puerto Rico)

Director: Frank Elías, Production ́s date: 2010, Duration: 12 min.

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: It is the history of a 4 year‐old boy with a great talent for the music.

The documentary contrasts the boy's innocence with the mother's concerns on

what can bear a future in the music for him. The history that "he narrates" the

singer Seven through some brief verses that locate the spectator in the thematic

of each segment.

3: 45 pm Dudamel (Venezuela)

Director: Alberto Arvelo, Production ́s date: 2010, Duration: 84 min.

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: “Dudamel. The sound of the children" takes as a central figure the

director of orchestras Gustavo Dudamel, who does a tour for his dream of

being a recognizedmusician. In this documentary, of an hour and 25 minutes

of length, Arvelo registersthe artistic and social impact that “The System "

(designed in 1975 by the teacherJose Antonio Abreu), has had in places as

dissimilar as Bolivia, Korea, Los Angeles,Berlin, Scotland, London, Colombia

and Venezuela.

5: 20 pm Fly (Cuba)

Director: Ermitis Blanco and Yolanda Durán

Date of Production: 2012

Length: 12 min.

Genre: Documental

Synopsis: Fly is a girl who lives in an unreal world. Want to "fly" but space has

become smaller.

5:40 pm Rise up (Jamaica)

Director: Luciano Blotta, Date of Production: 2010, Genre: Documentary,

Length: 88 min

Synopsis: There is a place where music is not just entertainment. It’s a way

of life. Far from the tourist resorts, RiseUp travels to the heart of Jamaica

and its flourishing underground music scene. On an Island where reggae is

considered the voice of the people and an outlet for survival, three aspiring

artists – Turbulence (a charismatic lyrical master from the ghetto), Ice Anastasia

(the privileged uptown artist), and Kemoy (a shy angelic songstress from

the country) – seek to “rise up” into the legendary eminence of their iconic

predecessors). Deep in the ghettos where reggae was born, music continues to

be a key form of expression for ghetto youths, who face crippling inequalities,

poverty, and violence. The film features music from many other notable artists.

7:20 pm Classical steel (Trinidad and Tobago)

Director: John E Barry, Date of production: 2011, Length: 42 min.

Genre: Documentary

Synopsis: Playing classical music on the steelpan showed Trinidad society that

a percussion instrument invented in the poorer areas of Port of Spain could

reach the heights of a symphony orchestra. The film looks at the importance

of classical music in the development of the steelband and its acceptance

worldwide as a legitimate instrument.