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CARIBBEANTALES ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF THE 8TH ANNUAL CARIBBEANTALES FILM SHOWCASE

The 8th Annual CaribbeanTales Toronto Film Showcase announced its award recipients Saturday September 14 during the Closing Night celebrations. This year, there were ten feature-length films and 45 shorts in Official Competition. The diverse selection included features and documentaries from 25 countries covering all genres and themes.

“My primary concerns in judging these particular movies in competition are: how does the film succeed in projecting a cinematic Caribbean tale that deserves to be specially recognized and shared because it harps on the universal longing to break barriers towards valuing cultural diversity and minding gaps? In what ways did the production team invest the frames with such coded qualities and digitizing morphs to synergize a cinematographic effect with unknown spectators? Thus, how does the movie earn international respect for a team’s collaborative effort to add their particular mosaic to the big pictures that get included in making up humanity’s evolving story?” said Camilo Antonio, Jury Chair for this year’s Feature Length CaribbeanTales Awards.

The feature awards below were selected by a jury comprising: film reviewer and documentarist Camilo Antonio (Chair); Director of Tourism for the Government of Antigua and Barbuda in Canada, Erica Henry Jackman; writer and social media specialist Bridget “Bee” Quammie; documentary filmmaker Melissa Gomez; and, filmmaker and Associate Professor at NYU’s Tisch School, Ian Harnarine.

Best Feature Documentary (Jury)

The winner of the Caribbean Spirit Award for Best Feature Documentary goes to Miquel Galofre and Amanda Sans for Songs of Redemption. Ian Harnarine remarked: “I’m usually skeptical of films about prisons/prisoners for being exploitative and treating them as poverty porn. This film transcended my low expectations and created a terrific portrait of people surviving and trying to do better than what’s expected of them. A real surprise that provoked much thought within my heart and soul. Beautifully shot and put together with some wonderful music. This movie has huge crossover appeal to larger audiences.” Indeed, “Songs of Redemption is an inspiring illustration of rehabilitation, rediscovery and repair and reveals music’s power to transform lives”, said Erica Henry Jackman, who presented the awards.

Best Narrative Feature (Jury)

The winner of the Best Narrative Feature Award goes to Terracino for Elliot Loves. Juror Bridget “Bee” Quamie commented, “A wonderful film that provides a unique Caribbean context to LGBT experiences. The acting paid the necessary respect to the subject matter and made a film that (I personally have been told) gives a feeling of pride to the Caribbean LGBT community, thus, a really creative film that comes full circle in a satisfying way.” Melissa Gomez added, “I loved the quirkiness of it, the parallel story-lines and the use of animation to propel the narrative!” Ian Harnarine capped the jury’s verdict, “Of all the films, this was the one that stuck out as a truly unique vision from an interesting director.”

Best Narrative Feature – Special Mention

Mary Wells for Kingston Paradise.

The jurors were unanimous in praising this “high quality film”, with “high production value”, and “purely cinematic memorable moments” that the director succeeded in bringing to the screen. Camilo Antonio, as Chair, summed up the verdict: “No question but that this movie results from a carefully composed script, production plan and maturation process, beautiful shots and meticulously edited details of incident from beginning to end. The lead actors were outstanding as they drew me into conflicted intimacies via close ups. Still, I would single out the character of “Rosie” (Carmen Small) with a “best acting award” not only because of her quietly convincing facial gestures but also because her performance epitomizes post-modern paradigm shifts at various points where she states a woman’s claim to equality, firmly and so powerfully, like one who has gone beyond being aware of her own elemental fears: ‘Me no fuck for nothing’ and ‘My change is to get out… to where respect waits’.”

Audience Award (Feature-length films)

Festival audiences choose the Audience Award. This year’s award goes to Mary Wells for Kingston Paradise.

CaribbeanTales Associate Director, Malinda Francis, headed the jury for the shorts program. She said, “The awards were selected from 45 short films selected for screening throughout the month-long festival. The winning short films were cinematically shot, with brilliant storytelling, and each succeeded in opening a window on Caribbean life.”

For Best Narrative Short (Under 40 minutes)

This award was shared by; Things I See by Shirley Bruno (Haiti/United Kingdom) that explores, through the eyes of a 10 year old child, how a Haitian family copes with news of the devastating 2010 Earthquake; and Cinco Minutos Para Mi Pais by Dominique Telemaque (Haiti/Dominican Republic), a beautifully told story that takes us into daily working life of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic.

For Best Documentary (under 40 mins)

The shared winners were: Mom by Ryan Singh, a touching confessional short that explores the role of fatherhood through interviews with the filmmaker’s mother and his wife; and, Footprints by Princess Simone Donelan, a snapshot of the impact on the people of the island of Grenada of Kirani James Olympic 2012 Win in the 400meter race.

The Perfect Pitch Award for Incubator 2013 was awarded to Karen Chapman for Cocoon, a feature documentary that testifies to the human impact of grief, as the filmmaker meets with her father’s killer in an attempt to come to terms with his death. Sixty audience members, who attended the packed CT Pitch Breakfast September 8 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, selected the winner of this award.

The 8Th annual CaribbeanTales Toronto Film Showcase experienced tremendous success and would not have been possible with out all of our partnerships and collaborations including: Islands of the Caribbean, Caribbean Camera, Hot Docs, and Harbourfront Centre.

While the end of another festival has come, CaribeanTales will be busy with its recently launched CaribbeanTales-TV, a Netflix-style video on demand platform. Stay tuned for details on the 9th annual CaribbeanTales Film Showcase set for August 2014!

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