Out Of The Caribbean: Trinidad+Tobago Film Festival Screening in The UK
The TTFF launches Crossroads across South East England, showcasing politically resonant Caribbean films, documentaries, and shorts Caribbean cinema is travelling to South East England this month. A new screening series called “Crossroads” debuts from 8th May to 18th June 2026, presenting standout titles from the Trinidad+Tobago Film Festival (TTFF) to UK audiences. The series offers […]
Black News 
The TTFF launches Crossroads across South East England, showcasing politically resonant Caribbean films, documentaries, and shorts
Caribbean cinema is travelling to South East England this month. A new screening series called “Crossroads” debuts from 8th May to 18th June 2026, presenting standout titles from the Trinidad+Tobago Film Festival (TTFF) to UK audiences. The series offers a rare opportunity for audiences outside the UK’s major cities to experience politically resonant work from one of the most underrepresented regions in global cinema.
The Crossroads series takes place across various venues, with all screenings accompanied by post-film discussions, creating space to engage more deeply with themes of identity, migration, memory, resistance, and selfhood. The event has been conceived as both a cultural exchange and a long-term audience development initiative, building connections between Caribbean filmmakers, UK venues, and local communities.
The films themselves are the real story. The programme spans documentary, narrative feature, and short film, but all carry the weight and relevance of conscious Caribbean storytelling.
Queen of Soca opens the series at BEAM in Hertford, a fitting choice given the cultural weight soca music has historically carried as a beacon of Caribbean political and spiritual expression.
Bam Bam: The Sister Nancy Story – charts the life of one of reggae’s most sampled artists. Sister Nancy’s distinctive Jamaican voice has had a huge influence on hip-hop and dance music, yet endured a long fight to receive rightful financial compensation. After 32 years, she finally received 50% of the royalties and ownership rights for her 1982 hit “Bam Bam” in a 2014 settlement.
Kanaval – screening at multiple venues, digs into Haitian carnival traditions, roots, and contemporary politics. An in-depth look at a cultural event that receives very little international attention.
A rich short film strand includes Little Moko, Gods of the Universe, Talisman the Goat, and Evangeline, works that collectively refuse to reduce Caribbean storytelling to any single perspective or register.
Behind the series is the Trinidad+Tobago Film Festival, an institution with a significant history in the Caribbean film landscape. The TTFF was conceived in 2005 by film historian, academic and producer Dr Bruce Paddington, with the specific intention of showing only Caribbean films in a global festival landscape that routinely sidelines the region. The first festival took place in 2006, supported by the Trinidad and Tobago Film Company, and by 2007 had expanded to include screenings in Tobago for the first time. Early editions screened landmark works including Sistagod by Trinidadian filmmaker Yao Ramesar, Frances-Anne Solomon’s A Winter Tale, and a retrospective of the 1974 T&T classic Bim. In 2026, the festival celebrates its 20th anniversary.
Crossroads represents the TTFF extending its mission outward, specifically to diaspora communities who have largely been shut out of institutional film culture. TTFF director Mariel Brown says: “Crossroads is about creating a space in the UK for Caribbean stories to be seen, heard, and engaged with.” The fact that the series is taking place outside London and other major cities is itself a statement. Caribbean stories are not just supplementary programming for multicultural London; our stories must be told everywhere.
The series takes place at BEAM in Hertford, Depot in Lewes, Electric Palace in Hastings, and Towner Cinema in Eastbourne.
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