CaribbeanTales Wants your Stories!

CaribbeanTales is looking for new literary, artistic, video and audio content!

Click here to go to our Newsletter for a description of what we're looking for.

An Award For "What My Mother Told Me"

"What My Mother Told Me", directed by Frances-Anne Solomon, has won the 2006 Award for "Best Film portraying the Black Experience" at the Festival of Black International Cinema, that took place in St Louis Missouri, Berlin Germany and Paris, France in April & May this year.

At the same festival "Memory Places", directed by Frances Anne Solomon and Eugene Paramoer, won "Special Acknoledgement" in the Best Documentary category.

"What My Mother Told Me" was also nominated for the 2006 HBO Award for Best Feature Film at Martha's Vineyard African Amercian Film Festival August 10-13th in Florida.

A UK/Trinidad & Tobago co-production completed in 1996, this beautiful film continues to garner recognition through festivals and screenings internationally. Last year it won the "Producer's Choice" Award at the Women of Color Film Festival in Berkeley.

It stars renowned Jamaican actress Leonie Forbes, with original music by the late Trinidad composer Andre Tankar.

Here is a list of selected recent (2005-2006) screenings of our films:

What My Mother Told Me
2006 Martha's Vineyard African American Film Festival (Best Feature Nomination)
2006 Festival of Black International Cinema, St Louis, Berlin, Paris. (Award, Best Film Portraying the Black Experience)
2005 Pan African Festival of Cinema, Ougadougou
2005 Pan African Film Festival, Los Angeles, California
2005 Women of Color Film Festival, Berkeley, California (Producer's Choice Award)

Reunion: West Indian Women At War
2006, The Trinidad & Tobago International Film Festival
2006 Festival of Black International Cinema, St Louis, Berlin, Paris
2005 Pan African Film Festival, Colorado
2005 Mpenzi Women's Film Festival, Toronto

Literature Alive
2006, Carifesta, Trinidad.
Literature Alive was screened in it's entirety as part of "Books On Film" at Carifesta IX.
In addition, Blood, Dub and The Matriarch - Dbi Young was screened at the Carifesta IX Film Festival.
2006, The Trinidad and Tobago International Film Festival.
Fabulous Spaces - Nalo Hopkinson,
Miss Lou: Then and Now - Hon. Louise bennet Coverley.
2006, Fipa, Paris
Memory Places - Andre Alexis,
Believe - Richardo Keens Douglas,
Un Homme Dans sa Ville - Dany LaFerriere
Home - Tessa McWatt.
2006, Reel Sisters, NY
My Dinner With Shani - Shani Mootoo,
Man Behind The Mic - Dwayne Morgan,
Blood, Dub and the Matriarch - Dbi.young,
Her True True Name - Pam Mordecai,
Fantastic Spaces - Nalo Hopkinson
2006 Festival of Black International Cinema, (St Louis, Berlin, Paris)
Her True True Name - Pam Mordecai,
Miss Lou Then and Now - Louise Bennet,
Memory Places - Andre Alexis (Special Acknoledgement Award)
2006 San Diego Women's Festival
Blood, Dub and The Matriarch - D'bi Young

Lord Have Mercy!
2005 African Diaspora Film Festival NY
2005 Best of the ADFF, BAM Center New York
2005 Pan African Film Festival, Los Angeles
2005 Atlanta Women of Color Film Festival

I Is A Long Memoried Woman
2006 African Diaspora Film Festival

Bideshi
Carifesta IX Film Festival, Trinidad

Thank you "Auntie Rita"

Dr. Rita Cox ("Auntie Rita" to many), was honored at the Parkdale Library on July 26th.

While she was the Librarian in Parkdale, Rita created an amazing collection of books, which has been renamed the Rita Cox Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection.

An endowment fund set up to protect and maintain the fund - The Rita Cox Endowment Fund - is receiving contributions from the community. Please support this important initiative!

Rita has been an Advisor and supporter of CaribbeanTales from the beginning. She believed in what we were setting out to do before it existed, and said she saw the Audio Books project in particular as an extension of her own work, because of the way it connects oral storytelling and literature.

Like many in her extended family, I remember well as a young person running around the city, helping out with Kumbayah, the annual Storytelling Festival that she ran. All the amazing storytellers that came here from around the world to perform at the Festival blew my mind and gave me a great respect for the power of the oral tradition. And for Auntie Rita.

Born in Trinidad, author and storyteller Rita Cox received the Order of Canada for her active role in promoting storytelling, multicultural education and literacy. Weaving together the oral and written word, Rita opened the magic world of books to her listeners,giving them tools to pursue their hopes and dreams. Rita was Children's Librarian and head of the Parkdale Branch of the Toronto Public Library.

LiteratureAlive Film Festival This Weekend

CaribbeanTales and Leda Serene Films
in association with the IRIE Music Festival, the National Film Board of Canada, and the CBC
present

the 1st Annual
LITERATURE ALIVE Film Festival
18 original documentary profiles of great Caribbean-Canadian authors.

"...provocative, inspiring, revealing..."

August 4th, 5th and 6th
at the NFB Cinema, 150 John St.

CLICK HERE for the full schedule.

Walk Good, Miss Lou

We were very sad to hear that Miss Lou died today.

She lived a long and full life, but everyone touched even briefly by her life and art will mourn the passing of a mighty spirit.

Leda Serene Films/CaribbeanTales together with the IRIE FESTIVAL invite you to join us for "A Celebration of Miss Lou" - a selection of documentary films exploring the genius and influence of poet, broadcaster, educator and comedienne Hon. Louise Bennet Coverley "Miss Lou", at the Literature Alive Film Festival, NFB Cinema, John Street, Toronto, on August 4th, 5th and 6th 2006.
For full Festival programme CLICK HERE.

CaribbeanTales on CBC Radio's The Arts Tonight

Tessa McWatt is one of the writers featured in a radio series produced by CaribbeanTales and currently airing on CBC radio's The Arts Tonight.

The series comprises of 5 revealing interviews with Caribbean-Canadian authors, Nalo Hopkinson, Honor Ford Smith, Tessa McWatt, and Olive Senior. Tune in on Thursdays at 10pm, beginning July 13th.

This radio series is produced and narrated by Leonie Forbes. The Sound Editor and Mixer is Kevin Risk, and the Recordist and Composer is Mauri Hall.

The project came out of Innoversity 2003, when CaribbeanTales' Shana Calixte and Resh Budhu won first prize in the CBC Radio Series category.

Miss Lou: Then and Now - a documentary by Leda Serene Films

Last year, I had the privelege to meet "Miss Lou". I spoke to her on the phone a few times, before my friend the actress and broadcaster Leonie Forbes agreed to arrange a visit. We spent a few hours with her, had dinner with her and her companion Rosie, and I taped most of the evening.

Leonie was able to access two documentaries about Miss Lou from Jamaica. (This was no mean feat since most of the television archives in Jamaica have deteriorated or been destroyed). In particular, "Miss Lou and Friends" is an extraordinary record of Louise's performance in 1990, when she returned to Jamaica for the first time since emigrating to Canada in 1981. She was 72 years old at the time, but the power, generosity and intelligence of her performance brought me to tears. The CBC agreed to let us use invaluable archive recorded in the 60's, 70's and 80's. (This was also hard won since this publicly funded national broadcaster charges its tax-payers extortionate private sector rates for use of their archive. In the end they “gave” us 5 mins of Miss Lou for $1,000).

The result is "Miss Lou - Then and Now", a half-hour doc that is part of our series "Literature Alive".
It's just one of the docs profiling Caribbean-Canadian authors that will be shown during the first ever "Literature Alive Film Festival", part of the Irie Festival 2006. The Festival will take place at the NFB Mediateque, on John Street."Miss Lou - Then and Now" was produced by Leonie Forbes and Frances-Anne Solomon, directed by Frances-Anne Solomon and Regan Macaulay.