Welcome

The Barbados Festival of African and Caribbean Film is the latest manifestation of a growing phenomenon – a recognition of the importance of visual media to the region, and an enthusiastic engagement with the processes of production, distribution, spectatorship and criticism. In other words, we in the region, recognizing the overwhelming power of the media networks of our much larger neighbour, are actively working to assert our own identity, as filmmakers and movie audiences. This involves exerting a choice over what we see, creating awareness of the ‘other’ cinemas of the world and bringing them to local audiences.  

The Festival embraces the cultural diversity of the region and of Africa, by acknowledging the legacies of different colonial pasts whilst forging closer ties of cultural collaboration and interchange.

The University of the West Indies, Faculty of Humanities and Education is playing host to a group of Caribbean and African film-makers, screening their films and creating opportunities for dialogue.

The Festival kicks off with the Barbados premiere of De Rooy’s Ava and Gabriel on 17 October, followed over the next three nights by the other films plus Lumumba, the political feature about the Congolese Independence leader, by Haitian director Raoul Peck (not attending). Daytime events will include workshops and a roundtable with the Directors. The venue for all screenings is the Olympus Cinema, Barbados’s up-to-the-minute cinema complex with facilities including an Internet Café and Jazz Café. Workshops and the roundtable will take place at the University of the West Indies.  As well as all six of the directors, the roundtable will feature Dr Samba Gadjigo, an expert in African film and the biographer of Africa's best known film-maker, Ousmane Sembene. The roundtable will be chaired by Bruce Paddington, who teaches film at UWI, St Augustine. Bruce is a founder member of the Trinidadian production company, Banyan, and a film-maker.