Caribbean Film Series: A 5th Anniversary Festival Comes to BAM

From Thursday, March 14 through Sunday, March 17, BAM presents Caribbean Film Series: A 5th Anniversary Festival, a four-day festival marking the five-year anniversary of the Caribbean Film Series, a platform for great contemporary films from the Caribbean and the diaspora. In shorts, narrative feature films, and documentaries from the UK, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and more, the series explores the thematic and aesthetic diversity of Caribbean cinema.

The series begins with Opening Night film Yardie (2018), Idris Elba's directorial debut, an adaptation of Victor Headley's novel of the same name set in 70s Kingston and 80s London; the Closing Night selection is Khalik Allah's transcendent documentary portrait of Jamaica, Black Mother (2018), with Allah in attendance at the screening.

Other films include Haitian filmmaker and actress Gessica Généus' documentary on mental illness and the fraught divide between Vodou and Christianity, Douvan Jou Ka Leve (2017), screening with Vincent Toi's short The Crying Conch (2017); Being Blacker (2018), a documentary about renowned reggae producer and record shop owner from Brixton, Blacker Dread, screening with the short For Gregorio (Guerra, 2017); 1950: The Nationalist Uprising (Dávila Marichal,2017), on the attempted overthrow of U.S. rule in Puerto Rico, screening with the short An Excavation of Us (Bruno, 2017); Panorama: Jamming to the Top (Shaw, 2018), a documentary on a vibrant steel pan community in Brooklyn, screening with the short Lifted (Galofré, 2019); the aesthetically daring Dominican crime fable Cocote (De Los Santos Aria, 2017); and a program of shorts. Rare screenings of films by Guyana's Victor Jara Collective-including the 1978 agitprop documentary The Terror and the Time and In the Sky's Wild Noise (1983), an interview with historian, author, and activist Walter Rodney-will feature an appearance by editor Lewanne Jones.