Antigua to host Caribbean Travelling Film Showcase

ST JOHN’S, Antigua (CMC) — Antigua and Barbuda will host the fourth Travelling Caribbean Film Showcase featuring 22 films from 16 Caribbean countries.

The January 10 to12 film festival is sponsored by the Cuban Institute of Film Art and Industry (ICAIC), UNESCO, UNICEF, TELESUR and the Cuban Ministry of Culture in collaboration with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and several Caribbean academic institutions. The festival is being coordinated by HAMAfilms.

The Travelling Caribbean Film Showcase, which has been in existence since 2007, will this time around feature films from Haiti, Guadeloupe, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba, Jamaica, Venezuela, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Antigua and Barbuda.

The films include documentaries, fiction and a collection of animated films and shorts.

One of the highlights of the festival is the documentary out of Cuba and the United States, ‘Traces of the Trade’ in which filmmaker Katrina Browne discovers that her New England ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in US history.

She and nine cousins retrace the Triangle Trade and gain powerful new perspectives on the black/white divide.

Other films include ‘Rain’ a feature film from Bahamian director Maria Govan and ‘Classical Steel’ a Trinidadian documentary highlighting the importance of classical music in the development of the steel band.

‘Rise Up’ is a Jamaican documentary that journeys into the heart of Jamaica’s flourishing underground music scene, while the Haitian documentary, ‘An Unwelcome Lot’, looks at the Syrian/Lebanese experience in Haiti.

The Film Showcase also includes a special screening of the critically acclaimed Antiguan film ‘The Skin’ on Saturday.