Bahamas International Film Festival (BIFF)

The Bahamas International Film Festival was launched in 2006 as a non-profit organization dedicated to providing the local Bahamian community and international visitors with presentations from world cinema. Offering films that might not otherwise be released theatrically in the Bahamas, the BIFF’s large-scale programme spans narrative features, documentary and short films, animation, and a regular Caribbean spotlight. BIFF educational programmes and forums include creative workshops, masterclasses, and panel discussions.

Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (TTFF)

The Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (TTFF) is described by Jamaican filmmaker Storm Saulter as the most significant regional festival for filmmakers in the Anglophone Caribbean. By the mid-2010s, TTFF was screening some 150 films, curating a New Media strand, and staging practitioner programmes as well as a three-day academic film symposium. The festival’s significance is attested by film scholar Christine Acham, who wrote in 2016 of the ‘multifaceted role that the TTFF plays within the Caribbean film industry, where it operates as historian, educator, and entertainer, and as an entrepreneur whose overriding interest is to build a sustainable film industry not only in Trinidad and Tobago but in the Caribbean’ (Acham 2016: 69)

The Island House Film Festival (TIHFF)

The Island House Film Festival was co-founded in 2017 by the director of The Island House boutique hotel, Lauren Holowesko-Perez, and Bahamian filmmaker and cinema curator Kareem Mortimer. It is an independent non-competitive festival focusing on films and filmmakers that emerge from the Caribbean region. Screenings are at the Island House Hotel Cinema, with the programme including Bahamian premieres of international, regional and local narrative films and documentaries. TIHFF has a strong emphasis on educational outreach, and on close contact between practitioners, audiences and would-be filmmakers. This intimate focus is reflected in panels and small group workshops at the hotel’s flexible workspace The Outpost, and educational venues including the University of the Bahamas.

Links and references

Christine Acham, ‘Trinidad+Tobago film festival: Nurturing a Developing Film Industry,’ Film Quarterly, vol.69, no.3 (2016), pp.79–83.

Jane Bryce, ‘Introduction. Close-Up. Caribbean Cinema as Cross-Border Dialogue,’ Black Camera, vol. 11, no. 1 (2019), pp. 123-29.

Carole Horst, ‘Fall Festival Preview: Caribbean Fests Share Resources to Promote Biz,’ Variety, Aug 20, 2013, p.58

Emiel Martens, ‘Towards a New Caribbean Cinema? an interview with Jamaican filmmaker Storm Saulter.” Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies, vol. 6, no. 2 (February 2, 2015), pp. 18–25.

Dan Mervish and Emilie Upczak, ‘A Guide to Caribbean Film Festivals,’ Filmmaker, March 4, 2019