Caribbean cinema that wrestles with memory, resistance, selfhood, and ecological stewardship will headline the 2025 Trinidad+Tobago Film Festival (TTFF).

Running September 24–30, the festival will feature over 100 films from 20 countries, selected, in the main, from a pool of more than 400 submissions.

“This year’s programme embraces the lived complexity of the Caribbean while rejecting external gazes,” said Ivonne Cotorruelo, senior film programmer at TTFF. “Our goal is to amplify voices that speak from within the region, while also creating space for global connections.”

The documentary line-up includes ‘Colossal‘, a Dominican Republic film directed by Nayibe Tavares-Abel, which premiered at Forum Berlinale earlier this year – the film is a poetic exploration of family archives and the nation’s political history; ‘A Mother Apart‘ from Canada and directed by Laurie Townshend, which examines familial bonds across generation, centring Jamaican spoken word poet and activist, Staceyann Chin; and ‘L’Homme Vertige: Tales of a City‘ – from Guadeloupe and directed by Malaury Eloi Paisley – an empathetic mosaic of Pointe-à-Pitre’s wanderers.

Other powerful works include ‘Walter Rodney: What They Don’t Want You to Know‘ from the United Kingdom, which investigates the late activist’s assassination and its link to Cold War conspiracies. The film is co-directed by Arlen Harris and Daniyal Harris Vajda. Twice into Oblivion from Haiti, confronts anti-Blackness in Dominican society. The film is directed by Pierre Michel Jean.

In the fiction section, striking titles tackle coming-of-age, diaspora, love, and the clash between tradition and modernity. Among them are ‘Sugar Island‘ from Dominican Republic, a bold genre-bending drama directed by Johanné Gómez Terrero; ‘Olivia & The Clouds‘, also from Dominican Republic, a lushly animated love letter to contradiction from filmmaker Tomás Pichardo Espaillat; ‘Kanaval‘ from Canada/Luxembourg, a Haitian diasporic story blending wonder with displacement, directed by Henri Pardo; also from Haiti is ‘Kidnapping Inc‘, from Haitian director, Bruno Mourral. Set in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, ‘Kidnapping Inc’ is a comedy thriller which follows the trials and tribulations of two inept kidnappers and would-be gangsters, friends Doc and Zoe.  ‘The Fisherman‘ from Ghana, a comedic ode to resilience, directed by Zoey Martinson; and ‘Queen of Soca‘, from Trinidad and Tobago, a vibrant musical drama with a solid performance by Soca star, Terri Lyons at its heart. The film is directed by Kevin Adams.

Cotorruelo explained: “We’re not here to flatten the Caribbean into a single postcard image, nor to recycle scripts packaged for export. We looked for stories that emerge from within – sweating, laughing, grieving, resisting. To programme the Caribbean ethically is not about assembling a collage of ‘diverse’ offerings; it is about tuning into the frequencies that dominant circuits ignore. We choose films that speak to the Caribbean as it is lived, not imagined. Films that care and we care back.”

For programmer Farrah Rahaman, the festival captures both the pulse of culture and the depth of history: “A highlight of the programme are the films about communities of creative practice and care – subcultures in dance, music, style, and fashion, bubbling with aliveness. The festival also assembles deeply inspiring portraits of revolutionary leaders like Walter Rodney, Frantz Fanon, Hazel Scott, and Cheddi Jagan, whose unwavering positions against empire remain luminary points for us today. And through ecological stories, we see the beauty in how Caribbean people relate to the environment, underpinned by our shared fate on this small blue dot.”

Festival programmer Wally Fall reflected on the collaborative process of shaping the line-up: “Working with my colleagues, I have never felt so close to Derek Walcott’s idea of a  ‘gathering of broken pieces’. Each film is a fragment that, when assembled, tells a bigger story of who we are. This year’s programme is about centring our joy, our pain, and our grief – while imagining tomorrows meaningful to us. We believe cinema can change the world, and it is already happening. We hope audiences will leave with pieces of these stories, carrying them forward until we gather again.”

In addition to the film screenings, TTFF/25 will feature post-screening Q&A sessions with attending filmmakers, a slate of 20 dynamic industry events and panel discussions, including ‘The Gaze‘ as well as networking opportunities through gala screenings and mixers at One Woodbrook Place, where the festival will be hosted.

“The festival is more than just a showcase of films; it is a platform for dialogue, exchange, and discovery,” added Cotorruelo. “We invite audiences to experience stories that challenge, inspire, and celebrate the Caribbean’s creativity on the global stage.”