"Our Voices, Our Stories, Our Films": Programming the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival

This article explores the curatorial practices of the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (TTFF), as a gesture toward improving the archival memory of film festivals in the Caribbean and its diaspora. Beginning in 2006, the year the festival was founded, the article analyzes the TTFF's programming over its first decade, concluding with the 2015 edition.

Using the author's own experiences as a programmer for the TTFF during this period, the article employs auto-ethnography, historiography, and case study to argue that the festival can be fruitfully evaluated through a methodological lens that positions it as what is known as a subaltern counterpublic sphere. The article then shows how the TTFF developed as a site of exhibition and celebration for cinema from the Caribbean and its diaspora, as part of an international network of film festivals that often excludes these films.

The article goes on to consider the challenges of the subaltern counterpublic sphere, arguing that such spaces, like the TTFF, can encourage uncritical reception of substandard cinematic works, as well as foster a limiting nationalism. Finally, the article considers further areas of exploration for the field of Caribbean film festival studies.