CaribbeanTales recently announced the 21 filmmakers that will take part in the Tenth Annual CaribbeanTales Market Incubator (CTI) in partnership with The Caribbean Development Bank, Ontario Creates and Telefilm Canada, and with support from the National Film & Video Foundation of South Africa. At the annual Big Pitch, they will compete for prizes that will include an award of $10,000 for Best Caribbean Project.
Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, CTI is a development and production hub for international producers. It aims to increase the volume of compelling world-class content from the Caribbean Region and from the world. This year’s filmmakers come from Canada, Cuba, Trinidad, Jamaica, Belize, Haiti, and South Africa. Sixty percent of the selected filmmakers are female creators and all are producers of colour.
Frances-Anne
Solomon, CaribbeanTales’ CEO said: “We are thrilled to be celebrating our tenth
year of bringing compelling projects from some of the most talented producers
in our wide Diaspora to the international market — enabling these filmmakers
to find partners and funding, and to connect with, and be seen by, audiences
worldwide. This year we are focused on forging international relationships and
co-productions. I am looking forward to building on this important
milestone in our growth, to create sustainable co-ventures between Canada the
Caribbean, and the world.”
After receiving a
record-breaking number of applications, projects were assessed by a team of
industry professionals. From these, eleven (11) projects were selected, that
range across romance, drama, thriller and speculative
fiction.
Haitian film star and producer Jimmy Jean-Louis brings his feature
psychological thriller steeped in Haitian folklore, Mother Water.
Jamaican cinematographer and director Gabrielle Blackwood’s Kendal is
a coming-of-age period drama, set in 1950’s colonial Jamaica. From Trinidad and
Tobago, Teneille Newallo and Stephen Hadeed’s Soucouyant is
a supernatural Amerindian thriller, set in the time of Christopher
Columbus. Canadian director Reem Morsi’s Fish is
a speculative fiction television series that delves into the dark side of
greed, betrayal and monsters; while Sylvia Vollenhoven’s feature
drama Buckingham
Palace tells
the story of District Six, a Capetown slum in the 1960’s –and what happens
when the bulldozers come. And from Cuba, Rosa Maria Rodriguez brings
her horror feature Nara,
that tells the tale of two sickly siblings confined at home, who succumb to
their darker natures.
For a full list of the projects and the participants please visit
the CTI website.
