Film: Once again, its GATTFEST

ATFFEST Film Festival 2016 call for entries

 

Join one of Caribbean’s most exciting and fastest growing community film festival

Deadline for submission - April 29, 2016

School Competition introduced to harness young talent

 

Kingston, Jamaica: Filmmakers from across Caribbean are being invited to submit their entries of short films, and be a part of one of the Caribbean’s fastest growing community film festival – GATFFEST, held under the auspices of the UWI Community Film Project (UWICFP).

 

GATFFEST, organised annually, is a catalyst for social commentary, expression and community participation. Now in its fourth year, continues its quest to be a platform for showcasing local, Jamaican and Caribbean filmmakers, and to harness their talents and works. The grand finale will be in June, when the winners will be announced at a glittering awards ceremony.

 

“GATFFEST is ever evolving,” said Professor Ian Boxill, Professor of Management Studies and Director, Centre for Tourism and Policy Research. “This year we have expanded the scope and introduced a School Competition, to encourage and showcase talent of upcoming independent film makers.”

 

The film festival has expanded its footprints across the shores, the entries are not restricted to a region, and GATFFEST welcomes international entries. Last year 36 international and regional films were screened, and films were received from every continent except Africa.

 

For the first time, this year’s festival is targeting high schools students with GATFFEST School Competition. “We have seen where these students have the capability and creativity to create entertaining and thought provoking short films,” Savannah Peridot, Business Development Manager, UWICFP said.

 

“We are targeting 25 High Schools in Kingston and Montego Bay,” Peridot informed. “We will choose 10 of the best film submissions, which will be shown at the film festival.”

 

Professor Boxill, who is the head of the GATTFEST Film Festival, reaffirmed the commitment to make a positive impact on the communities, nurture, develop and encourage young and upcoming talent.

 

“This is a platform for Caribbean’s budding and emerging filmmakers,” he said. “The objective is not only for them to get excellent visibility, but make meaning contribution to the communities through the medium,” Professor Boxill said.

 

GATFFEST is an excellent opportunity for filmmakers across the board to harness their talent, get a chance to interact with the best of Caribbean creative minds, tell their stories and be recognised for their talent and creativity.

 

 

The deadline for submission of entries is April 29, 2016.

Culture: Small Axe vs big Empire, a look at reggae's role in deconstructing colonialism

 

Prof Bill Schwarz

The last time this writer heard Bob Marley described as the "saviour of a generation" it was from an Anglo-Jamaican who had grown up in Brixton and who actually placed the Gong just behind "Crown Prince" Dennis Brown in that regard.

So it was especially poignant to hear, on Thursday evening last, a similar description, coming from a white British academic. Prof. Bill Scwarz, who studied English and History at York University, before going on to the Centre for Contemporary Studies at Birmingham. 

Speaking at a Lecture organized by the Institute of Caribbean Studies at the UWI Mona, Schwarz was even more pointed, stating that Marley had "saved a generation of Black Britons from suicide" owing to pressures heaped upon them by the white racist power structure in the two-decade aftermath (up to Marley's time) of the mass migrations of the 1950s and early 60s.

Schwarz eloquently added that in reggae and Rastafari, the black community found a "new mode of memory" one that was indeed critical given the given the trend towards a massive "forced forgetting" imposed by the demands of a then fading imperialism.
He cautioend however, in the ensuing question and answer session, that the memory and the nostalgia toward empire had hardly faded in Britain and that old modes of thought still resonated, even among the youth. 

As a corollary, he urged the audience not to construe multiculturalism - a social phenomenon first advanced and argued for by the late Jamaican academic, Stuart Hall - to mean racial or cultural harmony or some kind of "Obama post-racial" kind of society in Britain. He pointed out that violence against Black youth remained at alarmingly high levels, and - in answering another question - posited the view that in the post-Marley msuical era, there did not seem to be another obvious saviour (nor the obvious desire for one) emerging.   

His expansive discourse also touched on the role of religion and various belief systems in the Deconstruction of Colonialism ( or in the preservation of it, depending on one's view)

Prof. Schwarz has also taught Sociology and Politics at Warwick, Cultural Studies at the University of East London, and Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, and arrived at Queen Mary in 2004. I am an editor of History Workshop Journal.