CARIBBEAN FILM SERIES
The Caribbean Film Series presents feature films made by Caribbean filmmakers that highlight the richness, uniqueness, and viability of Caribbean cinema to Brooklyn, home to the largest population of Caribbean nationals in the United States, and to all New York City residents and visitors. Founded by Third Horizon (fka Caribbean Film Academy), The Luminal Theater, and Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Our long-running series returns with a crop of new short films from the disapora + the NYC premiere of a new documentary on the tumultuous short life and tragic death of a budding Trinidadian-Canadian author
The wonders and traumas of family history and legacies explored
The Caribbean Film Series returns with a mesmerizing search for an Afro-Cuban musical legend and a full evening of standout short films all from Caribbean film & mediamakers
The Caribbean Film Series is kicking off 2023 with TWO feature films and two days of great Caribbean cinema
Our Fall ‘22 edition brings this film festival fave that OkayAfrica calls a “tender ode to the Black diaspora” to Brooklyn
A rare, Curaçao-filmed and based feature film, making its Brooklyn, NYC premiere. A multiple-award winner, Buladó was The Netherland’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards.
Filmed on location with a cast of local Jamaicans, the film is an authentic case study of a country that continues to face the consequences of its turbulent past while trying to confront the new realities of sexuality and equality.
The Caribbean Film Series returns with this electrifying drama from Trinidad & Tobago
France’s history of colonialism and slavery in Haiti converge in this drama when Melissa, an orphan of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, meets white French teen Fanny, who uses Melissa’s family origins to do the unthinkable.
The story of Bed-Stuy legend Rawlston “Charlie” Charles and how he put Calypso music on the map and ushered in a new genre of music, Soca
Akeem, nicknamed the Rasta Rocket for his once-in-a-generation speed, is set to be Jamaica’s next big track-and-field sensation. But his rising star is weighed down by a volatile father, and an unruly older brother, and Akeem’s hopes that his rise in athletics will take him to the U.S. to reunite him with his mother, who has supported the family while living as an illegal resident for over a decade.
a Brooklyn time-travel adventure to right yet another wrongful death from police violence
Caribbean cinema is at a highpoint critically and artistically, in the ways its filmmakers thrill, entertain, and inform audiences globally. Our new four-day festival here at BAM, not only marks the five-year anniversary of the Caribbean Film Series, but also provides an unparalleled platform to reflect on the Caribbean and its diasporic experiences, in new and unconventional ways. No ‘Jafaican’ accents here, our selections are the truth. See more here.
This is the Easter weekend. In an inner city project, three people struggle against their demons and try to find redemption. They are Maxine, a window dresser depressed since she had an abortion and lost her lover ; Jordan, a boxer who has indulged in gay-bashing ; and 'The General', a drug dealer turned artist.
Controversial Haitian buddy crime comedy screens alongside Shirley Bruno’s meditative short film “Tezen”
The exotic, rarely seen Colombian Caribbean islands play backdrop to a sibling rivalry that produces fun & unpredictable scenarios that Indiewire.com calls “charming and unpredictable.”
#BlackGirlMagic Blooms in Afro-Futurist ‘BROWN GIRL BEGINS,’ Inspired by Hit Novel “Brown Girl in the Ring”
Vashti Anderson’s feature film debut “Moko Jumbie” is an intense blurring of reality, fantasy, superstition, and truth. It’s preceded by Nile Saulter’s gripping short film “Coast” (pictured)
Set against the backdrop of Trinidad and Tobago's mystical Carnival, a gifted and struggling young man becomes the object of intrigue for an older, well-meaning businessman until their worlds collide.
Damani Baker’s intimate family portrait of his stalwart mother who moves her family to Grenada to fight for social justice and Black life, and encounters an invasion by the United States. Q&A with the Director following the film.
Black and brown youth in Britain fighting for racial, social, and economic justice, inspired by the USA’s #BlackLivesMatter movement, explore the messy world of activism in Cassie Quarless and Usayd Younis’ gripping documentary.
Classic British-Trinidadian Film “PRESSURE” Returns to Brooklyn For One Night Only at The Caribbean Film Series, December 5th at BAMcinématek
Carnival Meets Bollywood in the Machel Montano starring “Bazodee”
About Caribbean Film Academy
Established in 2012, CaFA, is a NY not-for-profit created to share Caribbean films and support Caribbean filmmakers, in the region and the diaspora. CaFA’s work provides platforms for the exhibition, production, and distribution of Caribbean stories, worldwide.
About The Luminal Theater
Founded in 2015, The Luminal is a nomadic cinema that provides fully-curated exhibitions of diverse cinema and media of the Black/African diaspora, allowing these artists to present their work within our unique brand of shared audience experiences in Brooklyn and beyond. The Luminal absorbed its former theatrical offshoot, the Brooklyn Cinema Collective, in 2018.
About BAM Film
Since 1998 BAM Rose Cinemas has been Brooklyn’s home for alternative, documentary, art-house, and independent films. Combining new releases with BAM Film year-round repertory program, the four-screen venue hosts new and rarely seen contemporary films, classics, work by local artists, and festivals of films from around the world, often with special appearances by directors, actors, and other guests. BAMcinématek has hosted major retrospectives of filmmakers like Spike Lee, Chantal Akerman, John Carpenter, Manoel de Oliveira, Luis Buñuel, King Hu, and Vincente Minnelli (winning a National Film Critics’ Circle Award prize for the retrospective), and hosted the first US retrospectives of directors Arnaud Desplechin, Hong Sang-soo, Andrzej Zulawski, and Jiang Wen. Since 2009 the program has also produced BAMcinemaFest, New York’s home for American independent film, and has championed the work of filmmakers like Janicza Bravo, Andrew Dosunmu, Lena Dunham, and Alex Ross Perry.