The Power of the Film Festival

I came away from Caribbean Tales 2011 and TIFF 2011 with my eyes completely opened.  Every filmmaker or every wannabe filmmaker needs to go and be a part of a major film festival at least once in their lives.  

Caribbean Tales offered that opportunity and it is part of the beauty of how the festival is set up to be so close to the Toronto International Film Festival.  In terms of location (Harbourfront Centre in downtown Toronto) and in terms of timing.  I hope that proximity is something that the participants of the incubators will take full advantage of since that is exactly why Frances-Anne Solomon has organized the festival in this manner.  She genuinely wants Caribbean filmmakers to come and yes, of course have their films showcased and screened at Caribbean Tales, but also to step out onto the wider stage and into the great wide world of the entertainment industry.  Once any filmmaker does that, there is no going back.  

I'm almost embarrassed to say it, but I've been working in the entertainment industry for over 10 years now and TIFF 2011 was my first major international film festival.  I had entered a couple of festivals previously, but actually physically attending a festival, especially one on the scope of TIFF, was quite an eye opener.  

Caribbean Tales is the festival that gives us Caribbean natives (I'm from Barbados) a voice in an international arena.  It is entirely up to participants exactly how much they take advantage of that.

Look at it from this perspective: for one solid week, participants are invited to share their marketing strategies and to work on perfecting their pitches and presentation of their projects on an individual basis.   The group structure helps to expose the flaws and the strengths since there are different point of view and no presentation is ever 100% perfect.  The filmmakers are almost literally groomed to prepare for interaction at TIFF and to fully utilize every opportunity that will be made available over the course of the festivals.  And for those with films screening at the Harbourfront Centre, they have options to invite any potential partners for a screening (and of course having a screener DVD never hurts).  

Everything that is offered and is made available is to showcase the filmmakers, but more than anything it is to prepare them for the world stage so they can approach it with confidence and preparation... and with the knowledge that their fellow filmmakers are cheering them on.

Nobody else does this and it's why I'm particularly glad for Caribbean Tales.  It exposes all of us fimmakers to the true power and potential of what the film festival can be.

 

CT 2012 : Rodney Smith Launches 2nd Web Series

Rodney Smith aims to make his second visit to the CaribbeanTales Film Festival in 2012 a more memorable experience than the first. The Barbados-born writer and director will be bringing along The Accidental Time Traveller, a 30-minute sci-fi film which will be making its world premiere on September 15 at the Studio Theatre in Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre. The multi-cultural flick was filmed entirely in Toronto and will serve two purposes. It will be entered into film festivals worldwide as a stand-alone film, and it will also serve as the pilot episode for the upcoming web-based series Out of Time.

“It’s an exciting new project and I’m glad to be able to have the first public screening in Toronto,” Smith said. “We’ve been looking forward to this next step since it is really about controlling our distribution, and I’m glad to be able to get it started in Canada.” Smith previously co-created, co-wrote, was the cinematographer, editor, director and producer of the Dominion web-series.

At Smith’s role at CaribbeanTales 2012 won’t be limited to screening his latest work. This year he takes on the additional role of mentor/producer in the highly touted Incubator Program for up-and-coming Caribbean filmmakers. “Rodney Smith is one of the most innovative and skilled filmmakers from our region and we are delighted to be able to support his most recent project,” said CaribbeanTales founder and director Frances-Anne Solomon.

The Incubator Program will wrap up just as the Toronto International Film Festival kicks off in order to allow the participants some valuable exposure to TIFF. 

Incubator 2012 - Facilitator

Nicole Brooks (Canada/Trinidad & Tobago) has made a significant mark on the Canadian landscape for  more than 10 years as an artistic maverick blending her abilities in film, television and the performing arts  as filmmaker, director, actress, singer, playwright, producer, teacher and ‘art-ivist’.  Accomplishments include the critically acclaimed documentary ‘A LINC IN TIME (producer/director), the 52-part docu-series ECHO (Creator, Series Producer), the music documentary THE SISTAHS CONCERT and dance film ORISHA SUITE to name but a few. Her opera OBEAH OPERA, staged in February 2012, was nominated for a Dora Award. Coming up — a documentary portrait of internationally acclaimed chanteuse and legend Salome Bey.

Nicole Brooks, multi-facetted artist, producer, and entrepreneur, will faciliate the 2012 Incubator Program.

 

Incubator 2012 - Mentors

Penelope Hynam and Rodney Smith (listed above) will serve as Mentors, while also  representing their own projects. The other distinguished mentors are:

Annette Nias (Barbados) is currently the Cultural Officer (Film and Photography) with the National Cultural Foundation, Barbados. She has functioned as a writer, performer, director, producer, production coordinator and stage manager at concerts, plays, musicals, festivals, fashion shows, film and television productions, and carnival, in Barbados and abroad. She has managed and designed presentations for artistic individuals and agencies, and is on the Steering Group for CaribbeanTales Barbados Film Festival.

Ellis Perez (Dominican Republic) was appointed Director General of Cinematography in 2011 by Dominican Republic President Dr. Leonel Fernández Reyna. Effectively, he functions as the Dominican Republic’s Film Commissioner. As such, his office encourages the development of an industry with the potential to realize US $375 million dollars and to employ over 24,000 people. The new Film Commission aims to help investors, studios, production companies and independent producers find services that meet all their needs in the Dominican Republic. The office also provides support with location scouting, permits and clearances and all related needs in the Dominican Republic. Previous to this he was the Minister for Tourism in Santo Domingo.

Malinda Francis (Barbados/Canada) tells visual stories that derive from her experience, as well she tries to communicate and connect with others within her community. An independent filmmaker, she continues working on her own projects alongside various community media initiatives. The themes that she explores in her work are around urban living and cities, as well as migration stories. She is currently completing her first feature documentary The Diaspora Travels: Haiti that follows the Diaspora back to Haiti, and documents the long rebuilding process after the earthquake on January 12 2010.

Mary Wells (Jamaica/US) is an independent director, writer and producer based in Jamaica, and a Director of CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution. With some 20 years experience in television and film production, she has worked in all areas of production with organisations including Jamaica Government Broadcasting and US Cable TV stations. She has developed produced and directed programs for mainly the Caribbean region, specializing in documentaries. Her first feature film, Kingston Paradise, is in post-production and is destined for screens next year.

Menelik Shabazz (Barbados/UK) was raised in London and began his filmmaking career during the tumultuous seventies. His break-through first feature, "Burning an Illusion" -- now a classic of Black British cinema -- traces the political awakening of a young Jamaican woman in Britain’s racially charged environment at the time. During the nineties and the 2000's, he founded and led Black Filmmaker Magazine, an innovative glossy magazine and E-newzletter project that profiled Black World cinema. For eight years, he also founded and ran the BFM Film Festival. After a long hiatus, The Story of Lover’s Rock marks his return to filmmaking.

Moikgantsi Nkgama (South Africa/US) is the founder of ImageNation. As an audience development specialist for independent films targeting communities of color, she built a reputation for excellence in her field. She has been credited with the successful launch of Raoul Peck’s independent epic “Lumumba” (HBO) that received an Academy Award nomination. She was publicist for the groundbreaking documentary “Life and Debt,” in 2001, and was the New York City Promotions Coordinator for the independent film “Follow me Home” starring Alfre Woodard and Benjamin Bratt. Moikgantsi also served as a filmmaker coordinator for 1998 The Sundance Film Festival.

Dr. Rita Shelton Deverell, Order of Canada (US/Canada) was the first woman to lead a university journalism program in Canada. She is a founder of Vision TV, was previously APTN’s Director of News and has edited or contributed to four books. Since 2005, RJ Deverell Productions has produced 15 theatre pieces and TV dramas. Rita has recently completed her term as Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax and as a Trudeau Foundation Mentor. Rita is a two-time Gemini Award winner, and she recently acted in CBC Radio's Backbencher.

Incubator 2012 - Participants

Alana Lowe, (Toronto/Jamaica) was the Producer and Co-Director of The Forgotten City … In the City, that was showcased in the Sprockets International Film Festival at TIFF. Lowe is currently working on Stolen from Africa, a documentary that follows the journey of two emerging rap artists as they retrace actual slave trade routes.

Claire Hamel-Smith, (Trinidad) Winner of the 2011 Animae Caribe/Trinidad and Tobago Film Company Pitch This! Scholarship to attend the CaribbeanTales Incubator Program, this 20-year-old animator formed Lab206 with some classmates after graduation from the University of Trinidad &Tobago.  The studio’s pilot project “The Upstarts,” is an animated sitcom targeting 13 to 18 year-olds. 

Francisco Montas (Dominican Republic) wrote, produced and directed the award winning short “Some Sort Of Soap Opera-ish Theatre-Film”. He was Guest Director for a segment of Leticia Tonos’ feature “Love Child”, and wrote the screenplay for “Scent of Oblivion”, an adaptation of the Dominican bestseller, to be directed by Bruno Barreto. His project is "Short Stories Written While On Exile", a Drama woven from 11 short stories written by renowned Dominican writer Juan Bosch

Guetty Felin-Cohen (Haiti/US) is a Haitian-American filmmaker who splits her time between the US, Haiti and France.  She fell in love with cinema at an early age at the drive-ins of Port-au-Prince, and now uses the medium for denouncing social and political injustice. Her film Broken Stones, shot in the aftermath of Haiti’s devastating earthquake, won Best Documentary at the Belize International Film Festival and will be screened on September 12 at CaribbeanTales. Her new project is "Ayiti Mon Amour”.

Joleen Decle (Trinidad/US) is a Trinbagonian actor and writer based in Texas.  Her debut feature project Caribbean Crush puts a new twist on the traditional boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl love story.

Kalmplex,(Jamaica/Ghana/Canada) born and raised in Toronto, is a photographer, spoken word artist, videographer, DJ, painter, street artist and organic vegan chef who regularly performs at notable Toronto venues like the Gladstone Hotel, Tota, and the Lula Lounge. Her feature documentary project is The Healing Power of Jamaica.

Kareem Mortimer (Bahamas) made his feature film debut with Children of God, that earned him 17 international awards, was released in three countries and broadcast on Showtime. He is now working on Cargo, the story of an immigration officer (Kevin) who becomes a human smuggler, and three Caribbean immigrants whose lives are deeply affected by his choices.

Kimalee Phillip, (Grenada/Canada) is a Toronto-based filmmaker and co-founder of Zenzele Films, a collective of African and Caribbean women redefining the image of Black women in film. She is currently working on Forward Ever Backward Never, a documentary on Grenada’s Revolution from 1979 to 1983.

Marsha A. Davies, (Jamaica/US) is an award-winning screenwriter and producer now based in the U.S. She works in a wide range of genres including science fiction, fantasy and suspense. Her Project “into His Arms is a Caribbean saga of love, family secrets and revenge.

Melissa Gomez (Antigua/Canada/US) is a New York based documentary filmmaker, and researcher/associate producer at AMC. Her short film, “Share and Share Alike”, won Best Documentary at the 2010 Berlin Black FIlm Festival and was nominated for Best Short Documentary at the 2010 Pan African Film Festival. Silent Music, her autobiographical feature documentary, about growing up with deaf parents, has its World Premiere at CaribbeanTales 2012 on Sept 14th.

Motion (Antigua/Barbados/Canada) is an award-winning emcee, poet, playwright and Hip Hop artist, and the writer/producer of Aneemah’s Spot, which has just finished a successful sold out theatre run at the Toronto Summerworks Festival.

Natalie Wei, (Trinidad/Canada) is a Canadian-born artist, freelance photographer and filmmaker of Chinese-Trinidadian descent. Her debut film Chinee Girl won the Audience Award for Best Short Film at the 2011 Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival and follows the lives of women of Chinese descent in Trinidad, a group simultaneously visible and invisible, examining their memory, history, identity and unacknowledged influence within this unique culture.

Penny Hynam, (Barbados) began her career at the CBC and Telefilm Canada, co-founded Mobius Productions and worked as script supervisor on 40+ TV and movie sets in Canada, Europe and the U.S. After re-settling in Barbados, she worked as Director of the National Trust, Senior Producer for the Caribbean Media Corporation’s coverage of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and was founding President of the Barbados Film and Video Association. Her project A Day In a Bajan Life, a series of 15-minute TV vignettes of Barbadian personalities will receive its Canadian Premiere on Sept 10th at CaribbeanTales

Rodney Smith (Barbados/Canada/US) began his ten year career in film and television production as a writer in Barbados, moved on to Line Producing and was thrust into the role of Director on the feature film “Mort” in 2003. His unique vision and skill as Director of Photography adds to his value. He has honed his film making skills  through on-set experiences in a range of production environments including independent film, television shows and music videos. He is the co-creator, co-writer, cinematographer, editor, director and producer of Dominion the web-series. His second web venture The Accidental Time Traveller will have its world Premiere at CaribbeanTales on Sept 15th..

Tanya Davies, (Jamaica) is a writer and animator who studied film production in New York and screenwriting in Los Angeles, has written serials for TV and radio, and lectures at universities in the U.S. and Jamaica. Her animation project is Hummy, based on the Jamaican National Hummingbird, an edutainment character geared to pre-school children of Caribbean heritage to help foster positive cultural identity.

Shelton Deverell (Jamaica/Canada/US) is a digital artist who creates engaging video animation, logo designs and illustration for Imax, Nelvana, and other major clients. He is currently working on Inventurer Game” a smart-phone App to teach children about the lives of inventors, beginning with those of Caribbean ancestry.

Sue Ellen Chitunya, (Zimbabwe/US) ia a budding filmmaker from Zimbabwe whose films have screened at the Short Film Corner in Cannes, the Atlanta Film Festival, and the Action on Film Festival. She brings A House of Stone to the 2012 Incubator, a story loosely based on her grandfather and set against the backdrop of Zimbabwe’s war for liberation.

July 2012 Update

Good evening filmmakers!

I hope all is well with you.

Just a quick update from your distributor. 

We are deep in preparations for our Toronto Showcase and Incubator Program that will take place from Sept 4-15th, and the line-up is very exciting.As you know our festivals in Toronto, Barbados and New York, serve to raise the profile of the company and of Film Brand Caribbean, so drawing audiences and buyers to your wonderful work.

Distribution-wise, I am pleased to say that our income from sales increased 100% in our second year, over Year 1. Interest in the company continues to grow, and so despite the bleak economic climate and dire global state of film distribution, we enter Year 3 with optimism.

Educational sales remain our staple, and income in this area continues to rise, but we also had a nice broadcast sale to CUNY TV, that broadcasts in the Tristate. 

In terms of current and future plans, we are working with German VOD platform http://Onlinefilm.org to make your films available for home use online. The following films are already available for sale there,  so you can do a search on the site and find them (some still need pics uploaded)

Ramabai Espinet: Coming Home

Nalo Hopkinson : Fabulous Spaces

Trapped In an Elevator

Trou D'Air

Entry Denied

Directions

Crossing Over

E Leyenda de Buchi Fil

Drummit to Summit

Calypso Dreams

Finder of Lost Children

Positive and Pregnant

Miss Lou: Then and Now

I Is A Long Memoried Woman

Reunion

We aim to have all but our best broadcast/educational sellers available online within a year, both at ONLINEFILM.ORG as well as on our website CARIBBEANTALES-WORLDWIDE.COM.  We will continue to do due diligence to manage the sales centrally to ensure that only those legitimately wishing to view the films for home use have access - educational and broadcast will still have to buy directly from us.

We are excited to let you know that we are in negotiations with ONLINEFILM.ORG to be their exclusive partner for Caribbean content across all their various European platforms - the site will be called Caribbean.Onlinefilm.org.

And, at this weeks press conference for the Toronto Showcase we announced plans to launch CARIBBEANTALES-TV, a proprietary Netflix-style portal for viewing Caribbean films online. Right now we are building the infrastructure, and it aims to be fully functional onstream by next year. 

Here is a rough protoptype of what the site may look like (early stages).

As you know at the end of 2011 we made the decision to temporarily put a hold on new acquisitions in order to consolidate our Catalogue. Nevertheless, we are very pleased to welcome a number of new films/filmmakers to the CaribbeanTales family in 2012. They are:

Room for Rent - by Ginger Knight (Jamaica)

Little Boy Blue - by Nicholas Attin (Trinidad and Tobago)

Mr Crab - by Faisal Lutchmedial (Canada)

Jab! The Blue Devils of Paramin (T&T); 70 - A Revolution  (T&T); C'est Quitte: The French Creoles of Trinidad (T&T) - all produced by Elizabeth Topp and directed by Alex DeVerteiul.

A Series of Agricultural Short Films - produced by the CSA and directed by very talented young filmmakers from around the Caribbean region.

and, Human Traffic : Past and Present (USA) - directed by moi, (Frances-Anne Solomon), for the Center for African and African American Research at Duke University.

We will be producing a special mini-catalogue to include and promote our new acquisitions at TIFF in September.

That's it for now.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch to let me know if you have questions or wish to chat about the above. I am often available on skype or always by email and very happy to hear from you.

With best wishes,

Frances-Anne 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Season's Greetings and Best wishes for 2012

Dear Filmmakers

Happy New Year! 2012 is going to be fabulous!

Good Newz:

Many good things are planned for the new year - here are just a few.

CTWD films will be profiled at Harbourfront in February! The following films have been selected to be screened as part of KUUMBA, Harbourfront's Black History Month Cultural Festival:

Features

- Joebell and America by Asha Lovelace
- Devotion by Dawn Wilkinson
- Finder of Lost Children by Ricardo Scipio

Shorts:

- Caribbean Skin, African Identity by Mandisa Pantin
- Directions by Renee Pollonais
- Entry Denied by Chris Browne
- Now Jimmy - by Mary Wells

We are very excited about this and will be promoting the screenings aggressively during January.

Even better, Harbourfront rented the films and so we have made some money for you from these screenings!

While sales have generally been sluggish, one very exciting development has been that we have been getting lots of interest from festivals and markets around the world to attend and also to screen your work.

CTWD recently returned from Ventana Sur, a wonderful market in Buenos Aires, Argentina where we were invited to screen Little Boy Blue by Nick Attin, MAS MAN by Dalton Narine, and a selection of films from the Animae Caribe Animation Festival. All the films were really well received, and stood up well against the healthily funded South American feature films and other productions.

This trip also led to many requests for screeners to many other South American Film festivals.

Over the next few weeks we will be uploading all your films to our password protected vimeo account, so that potential buyers and festival programmers can view them online without us having to send physical (and easily pirated) screeners.

Festival screenings will be a major new push for 2012, as we begin to focus in earnest on raising the profiles of individual films in our 2012 catalogue. As you know our major focus during our inaugural year has been to put CaribbeanTales and Film Brand Caribbean on the international map - and we have been very successful at this!

In 2012, CTWD will be attending a number of international festivals. So far we have been invited to attend FEMI (Guadeloupe) in Jan, the Berlinale Film Festival (Germany) in Feb,  and the Guadalajara Film Festival (Mexico) in March.This will give us an opportunity to promote your work, and build key connections internationally.

We will continue to keep you posted about future markets, and festival screenings.

As most of you know I have been travelling in the Caribbean over the past weeks. It was great to have a chance to catch up with all of you Trinidad and Barbados based filmmakers - thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedules to discuss marketing strategies for your work. As you know well, this business works best when we communicate regularly and work together in tandem  to promote your wonderful films.

CTWD also held distribution workshops in T&T and and Bim - both very well attended and it was great to see some of you there. This is an important forum for me to share with you the most up to date information about the distribution landscape.

As you can see, we have changed our Filmmakers Newzletter platform to posterous ... so if you recently got an invite from me from googlegroups then pls ignore.

Please note that Courtney Panchan -- who has worked with me tirelessly over the past 5 years, is now our Operations Manager. She is in charge of Sales and Administration for all aspects of the company and can be contacted directly at cp.caribbeantales@gmail.com.

Finally, we are busy preparing your six-mthly reports and those of you whose films made sales in this period will soon be receiving those by email - please feel free to contact myself or Courtney about any questions or concerns.

Here's to great success in 2012 -  health wealth happiness and peace to all!

Frances-Anne