Caribbean Tales Film Festival goes online

Left to right Nickolai Salcedo, Frances-Anne Solomon, Tatyana Ali, Lisa Wickham, Affion Crockett

The theatres were booked, the movies picked and the stars were making plans to come to  Toronto to walk the Caribbean Tales Film Festival’s (CTFF’s) red carpet this September.Then, yesterday,the CTFF announced that although the show must go on, it will not be taking place in any bijous in the year of COVID-19.

“It is not happening in theatres this year. It will be a live-stream festival,” CTFF spokeswoman Fennella Bruce told The Caribbean Camera. “ It won’t be held in any movie house, unless there is a drastic change in COVID-19 protocol from Provincial and Toronto health officials.”

The 15th annual movie fest will now run from September 9 until October 2 with eight nights of films

And during the summer months there will be community programming made available through the festival’s innovative subscription-based digital streaming platform.  The Video-On-Demand CaribbeanTales-TV (CT-TV) platform will offer African and Caribbean-heritage films and TV programs to a worldwide auidence.

Dianne Webley

“For 15 years CaribbeanTales has amplified our Caribbean stories and allowed Toronto audiences access to films they wouldn’t otherwise see,” said Festival Director Diana Webley. “Now that we have had to move the festival to an online platform due to COVID-19, we expect to have even more people watching our live-stream from the comfort of their homes.”

The list of full length and short movies that will be shown during the festival will be released at a July 8 online media launch. The evening’s festivities include a retrospect of CTFF’s history and the cast talkback and the screening of CTFF founder Frances-Anne Solomon’s award-winning film Hero: Inspired by the Extraordinary Life and Times of Mr. Ulric Cross.

 As part of the festival programming, a free screening of Hero will also be made available for viewers in the Toronto area who can’t make it to the launch..

The award- winning film stars Trinidad’s Nickolai Salcedo is in the lead role of Ulric Cross, Peter Williams (Stargate SG1), Joseph Marcell (Fresh Prince of Bel Air) and Ghanaian superstars John Dumelo, Adjetey Anang and Prince David Oseia.

The Caribbean Camera will update readers on the  Festival’s summer programming and the Caribbean films that will be coming to Toronto this September. 

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