PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – A total of 88 films from 20 countries have been accepted into the 2025 Trinidad+Tobago Film Festival (TTFF), reflecting a rich and diverse tapestry of Caribbean and diasporic storytelling.

With a record-breaking 402 submissions, the festival’s programming team had the difficult task of curating a final selection that captures the evolving identity, vision, and artistry of Caribbean cinema.

Of the accepted films, 24 per cent are from Trinidad and Tobago. Mariel Brown, award-winning filmmaker and new festival director, said that strong showings in submissions also came from Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and other Caribbean nations, underscoring a dynamic and increasingly competitive regional film landscape.

“We were bowled over by the number of submissions we received this year,” she said. “It speaks volumes about the current state of the Caribbean film industry, which is growing and developing all the time.”

While the festival awaits a full statement from its programming team on emerging thematic and stylistic trends, a key focus of this year’s selection process was the authenticity of the submissions. Brown said the jury paid special attention to questions of authorship and audience, asking, “Who is telling this story, and to whom?”

“One of the major interests for the programming team this year was the craft involved in centering the Caribbean experience from within and for ourselves,” Brown explained. “They looked beyond production value, and drilled down into how the filmmaker’s perspective shaped the storytelling.”

TTFF programmer, Farrah Rahaman, further commented, “I was… thrilled to see so many well researched and deeply inspiring portraits of revolutionary political and cultural leaders  – Walter Rodney, Frantz Fanon, Hazel Scott, Cheddi Jagan to name a few – whose unwavering positions against empire remain luminary points in this moment of empire, ‘pieces of sunlight through the fog’ as Walcott has described it.”

Meanwhile, TTFF has named Rodell Warner, a multidisciplinary artist from Trinidad and Tobago, as this year’s festival artist.

Known for his experimental digital work and bold visual investigations of Caribbean identity, flora and history, Warner’s inclusion is seen as a powerful complement to the spirit of the festival.

“I have followed Rodell’s career for many years – from his early photography to his current explorations in new media,” Brown informed. “He has an extraordinary way of perceiving and responding to the Caribbean. His work is visually dynamic, deeply experimental, and rooted in our shared past and present concerns.”

While the details of Warner’s contributions are still under wraps, organisers promise a compelling intersection of film and visual arts throughout the festival. “The dialogue around selfhood, memory, history and place is something that spans and connects many creative media. This intersection is very much evident in both contemporary visual arts and filmmaking today,” added Brown.

Warner is elated to be included in this year’s festival. “I am really excited to be able to present something for conversation – to be the person that’s sharing the thing that’s going to be thought about, looked at and talked about,” he shared.

The festival director disclosed that this year’s retrospective programme will honour the work of Richard Fung, the Trinidad-born, Toronto-based filmmaker and activist whose 40-year career has been defined by deeply personal explorations of diasporas and home, belonging, sexual identity, and memory.

“Richard’s creative work is guided by an abiding intellectual curiosity,” said Brown. “His ceaseless quest for understanding and his decades-spanning body of work are worthy of recognition and study, especially now, as questions around diaspora, identity, selfhood and belonging take on new urgency,” she stated.

While Fung has spent much of his life abroad, his work continually circles back to Trinidad, its people, its cultural landscape and history of migration. “His work, whether poignant, funny, revelatory or heartbreaking, always seeks to uncover something essential about who we are – the people of both inward and outward diasporas, ever trying to locate ourselves,” Brown added.

The Trinidad+Tobago Film Festival 2025 will be held in September in Woodbrook, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Brown said it promises a compelling mix of screenings, retrospectives, new media and experimental art installations, and industry events, positioning itself once again as a vital platform for Caribbean cinema and creative expression.