“Who Let the Dogs Out?” is a love story that traces the journey of
homeless dogs from the litter to the lethal injection. This documentary
about home and homeless dogs addresses the increasing problem of stray
dogs in our nation, mirroring as it does so the treatment of a nation’s
animals with the moral progress of a nation. Through health-care and animal welfare organizations, this film
travels through Trinidad’s rural and city landscapes comparing and
contrasting homed and homeless dogs, blending graphic video footage with
still photography to reveal an intimate portrayal of a destitute dog’s
world of disease, decay and death.
In Crick-Crack, Ek Nawa Kahani legend collides with life. This story is
laced with sorcery and intrigue as Mayaro 'soucouyants' Matilda and
Loretta shed their skins and take off for England to steal a golden
spoon from Queen Victoria's royal cutlery. But the lives of these two
old hags are changed forever when their obeah fails and a disoriented
Loretta returns to Mayaro just before daybreak to a 'sound cut arse' while Matilda comes back with the golden spoon that ignites the greed of Lionel, her "saga boy" lover.
Lionel soon forgets his grandfather's warning of "crave all, loss all"
so he plots to get the diamond-studded golden spoon. He steals the
spoon, outwits his lover and pours salt and pepper into the mortar where
she has hidden her skin, but after doing this, Lionel finds himself in
deeper trouble than even he could have imagined! Matilda puts the curse
of eternal life on Lionel and compels him to become transformed every
night into a creature of the underworld.
Determined to end the
curse and return to his former self, Lionel seeks the help of other folk
spirits but punishment awaits him. He is lured to a forest by a La
Diablesse who exacts revenge for all his ploys against women. He later
battles with Papa Bois for the mysterious Mama l'Eau (Mother of the
Water). He even witnesses the birth of a Raakas, a deformed demonic
newborn child from Indian folklore whose eyes, posture and movement are
like that of a tadpole. In exchange for his freedom, Lionel offers white
rum, cigarettes and a black rooster to Dee Baba, an Indian spirit that
protects the land against dangerous forces but when Dee Baba fails to
help him he finally enlists the help of Gang Gang Sara, the African
witch of Golden Lane, Tobago. Will he survive unscathed to tell the
tale?
This thought provoking documentary produced jointly by emerging
Trinidadian-Nigerian filmmaker Oyetayo Raymond Ojoade and Nigerian
criminologist Professor Onwubiko Agozino questions power and social
control through exposing the central conflict between Euro-centric and
Afro-centric religions. This film exposes the schisms inherent in the unhappy marriage between
the secular and the sacred, first offering a socio-historical context
as it re-visits the 1917 - 1951 Prohibition Ordinance on the “Shouter”
Baptist religion of Trinidad & Tobago but it goes further by daring
to challenge laws that legislates against a belief system, questioning
the real causes and the effects of such legislation both on members of
the faith and the general public.
Shouters and the 'Control Freak' Empire intertwines
Christianity with African cultural practices, it juxtaposes
Euro-centricism with Afro-centricism and it restores a voice to the
voiceless in a film that is compellingly visual and profoundly
enlightening.
This film won a best international documentary award from the Columbia Gorge International Film Festival in 2011.
Lionel, an old ‘village ram’, reflects on his youth and his romance with Matilda, a powerful Mayaro soucouyant. He coaxes her and her friend Loretta to take part in a flying competition to see which of them could fly to England and steal a gold spoon from Queen Victoria’s Royal cutlery. In doing so, he accidentally triggers Loretta’s death for she lands only in Tobago, sucks a cow and upon returning to Mayaro, suffers an epileptic attack which leaves her, at daybreak, exposed and without her skin, on the public water tank. Soucouyant beaters discover her at dawn and although she tries to escape by several transformations into animals, she is beaten to death when she changes into a snake and is tossed into a pot of boiling pitch.
Meanwhile, her more powerful soucouyant friend Matilda returns to Mayaro with the gold spoon that she claims to have stolen from Queen Victoria’s Royal cutlery. This diamond-studded gold spoon ignites Lionel’s greed and he plots to steal it from her. Using his charm and his wit, he wields the only weapon mastered by every ‘village ram’ - but with this final demonstration of his virility, he finds himself in even deeper trouble than he could have ever imagined! Hounded by his past and his guilt, death eludes a tormented Lionel who eagerly awaits it. He thinks his only salvation is to reveal his betrayal of his soucouyant lover.
Suck Meh Soucouyant Suck Meh is a rousing, Caribbean vampire movie narrated in the colloquial Trinidadian language and based on one of the Caribbean’s mythological creatures, intertwines calypsos with chants, juxtaposes live-action with smooth animation and restores folktales to folks in a modern palatable form that is compellingly visual and profoundly enlightening.
The republic of Trinidad & Tobago in the southern Caribbean, has a rich history of culture, particularly in its music and in its Carnival art. Yet the most unusual blossoming of the Trinidadian culture has emerged in the handicraft of Hollis Andrews, a coconut sculptor and driftwood artist.
Hollis Andrews base his creative expression solely on a natural craft. His artistic impulse thrives only on natural elements - the seeds, fruits and wood that pervades his tropical environment. His insistence upon utilizing elements native to his homeland in creating images of local significance is his celebration of Caribbean history and its culture.
A Natural Craft: From the Bush to the Beach blends still photography with video footage to capture Hollis Andrews' creative endeavour as he explains the genesis and development of his unusual art. It explores how, through craft, a grassroots man accepts what the Caribbean has offered to him and gives it back, packaged and re-shaped into a unique form of beauty.
When Ruth’s house is gutted by fire and she takes up residence at an old abandoned beach house, she mistakenly receives a journal written by Fiawah, her husband’s illiterate mistress. Ruth hates Fiawah but little did she know that Fiawah’s journal would be the catalyst that would propel her to examine the fabric of her life, knitted by its scraps of memory. She reads the first journal entry triggering memories of her younger self, one who had, twenty years earlier, engineered a whirlwind romance between herself and South Pacific islander, Taumauosi, who was unaware that she had deliberately lured him to the altar with lies of her pregnancy.
With husband in tow, Ruth arrives in Malaugui, Taumauosi’s home country but she is unaware that a bride-to-be (Umani) had already been chosen for her husband. At the airport, as soon as the Mokatikula clan realizes that Taumauosi has shown up with a Western wife of his own choosing, that bride-to-be is abandoned and Ruth is hustled to Taumauosi’s traditional village.
In the village, Ruth discovers that the evolving stranger, her husband, has four mothers, he carves wooden figurines as a hobby, he harbours political ambitions and he cowers in his father’s shadow. She is deeply perplexed by the traditional South Pacific culture where food is cooked on hot stones buried underground, stories are told by elders under the moonlit sky, young boys are schooled in weaponry and hunting, arranged marriages are conducted, bride prices are negotiated and a clan’s children belongs to the entire community and can be given to childless couples within that clan community. That first night, Ruth also discovers that men stay apart from their women in their own “men’s hut” but when Taumauosi attempts to follow this traditional custom, Ruth demands that he stay with her in the hut to which she has been assigned. Taumauosi complies but from that moment, the tension between his father and himself intensifies and the Chief, Taumauosi’s father, unable to live down the scandal created by his son’s marital union, becomes Ruth’s most formidable opposition. When Eyes Feel
Exploring the Rastafarians, Baptists and Orisha religious groups with female members having different philosophical orientations, social positions and cultural activities.
Created for an international audience, yet set against the intriguing backdrop of three diverse African-based religions each retaining some elements of Christianity, this documentary “From Adam’s Rib” will explore women’s status, roles, beliefs and practices in the sacred space of ‘Shouter’ Baptist, Rastafarian and Orisha women - a space that is a paradox of sorts - being simultaneously imprisoning and liberating, baffling and beautiful.
This exploration of women through this religious landscape shall take place in both Trinidad and Tobago, islands where mainstream religious institutions have by tradition, been rigidly male dominated. Some grassroots religions have inherited this gender bias, others have created a division of leadership based on it and still others have made no apologies in attempting to overthrow it. As such, the religious arena has become a gayelle where gender issues are challenged, resisted and fought at a time when women are negotiating their place in this arena.
Through a religious peep-hole, this documentary will investigate Afro-Trinidadian women’s social and cultural activities whilst it exposes some of the prejudices, assumptions, myths and challenges that seek to define and demote those of us created from Adam’s rib.
The Chacachacare Leprosarium is now isolated and derelict. It is a neglected place. It is a place of death and a place of beauty, a place governed by a haunting silence but rich in the history of service and sacrifice.
On the island of Chacachacare which borders the Boca Grande of the north-west coast of Trinidad, our social history stands naked, amidst the ruins of an abandoned leprosarium and the graveyard of the nuns who once served that leper colony.
The Chacachacare Leprosarium is now isolated and derelict. It is a neglected place. It is a place of death and a place of beauty, a place governed by a haunting silence but rich in the history of service and sacrifice. The outside world remains unaware of its mysteries and its secrets, including the knowledge of the happy marriage that occurred there between the sacred and the secular.
This documentary travels rapidly through time to explore how the religious missionaries,aided by the colonial government served the lepers of Trinidad & Tobago 1926-1955. Utilizing a braided time scheme that entwines the past and the present, this documentary blends historical photographs and newspaper articles with illustrations, video footage and still photography to reveal the complex social history, which is part of our cultural heritage.
Shucking: The Art of Harvesting Oysters is a documentary that explores the life of the Oyster from the aerial roots
of the Caroni Bird Sanctuary in Trinidad and Tobago to the flambeau lit
tables of the Oyster vendor.
Navin Kalpoo of Kalpoo's Ibis Tours gives us a detailed description of the life of an Oyster in the Caroni Bird Sanctuary.
The
way some communities use mangroves is by pulling every last crab out of
its hole and by slashing mangrove roots to extract oysters growing on
them.
These are unsustainable practices that will eventually
destroy a resource that can support the wider community, not just the
crab catchers but also the oyster harvesters.
