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Wilmington will serve as a gathering place for Caribbean filmmakers, actors, designers, creatives and cultural leaders from across the region this weekend.
The Caribbean International Film and Fashion Festival returns to Delaware on Oct. 9 and 10 for a two-day celebration of cinema and style. The festival will highlight film screenings, filmmaker conversations, a Caribbean fashion show, as well as an awards ceremony in an effort to bring together commercially distributed films, such as projects recognized at the Sundance and Essence film festivals.
Lexi Whilby, founder and festival director of the Caribbean film festival, said the weekend is designed to give Caribbean filmmakers a larger platform in the United States.
“This is an exciting weekend and an exciting event or a series of events,” she said. “It is highlighting — for the first time on a major level in the United States — a Caribbean Film Festival for the second year. It is a premiere film festival where we are bringing over 40 films nominated for awards and we’re screening 26 at Penn Cinema at the Riverfront.”
The first day will feature a full day of Caribbean film screenings. On the second day, film screenings will air through 6 p.m., and then the festival will move to the Sheraton Suites in downtown Wilmington for a fashion show, before concluding with the awards ceremony at Theatre N.
Among the films being screened is “Threads of Us,” a feature-length film from Donisha Prendergast, an award-winning screenwriter, actress, filmmaker and philanthropist — and the granddaughter of reggae legend Bob Marley, who lived in Wilmington in the 1960s.
“Bob Marley came to this city,” Whilby said. “People don’t know that there was a rich Caribbean renaissance happening at that time in Delaware. There’s so much history and it just felt right [holding the film festival here].”
Marley’s lineage returns to Wilmington
“Threads of Us” has screened in nearly 10 cities over the past two months and is nominated for nine Caribbean film awards, including best feature film, best actor, best actress, best costume design and best soundtrack.
Prendergast said “Threads of Us” is a love story set against the backdrop of Jamaica’s Independence Day celebrations, following two young people navigating life and independence on the island nation, while also showing audiences that Jamaica is more than just a hub for tourism.
“I think that many people when they think about Jamaica, they think about a red stripe, they think about a beach, they think about a spliff,” Prendergast said. “But for me, when I think about Jamaica, I think about humans who are navigating, cascading circumstances on an island that has been promoted for tourism, but at the same time is an island who is still trying to find its own roots and a way to sustain its own self.”
For her, she hopes that not only the community can indulge themselves in the culture, but also for filmmakers to feel represented and see their work shared globally.
“I think that the Caribbean and Jamaica are telling excellent stories, stories that can make [an] impact, that can translate to global audiences,” she said. “I hope [viewers] they’re activated. I want them to be activated, to go on their own journey of self-discovery and identity and I hope they’re activated to create things that will become an archive for us, especially in the diaspora.”
Why Wilmington?
For Whilby — when planning the festival — Delaware offered more than just a convenient location between major metropolitan hubs.
Bringing the festival to Wilmington gives filmmakers a chance to see what the city has to offer — especially following the state’s film tax credit incentive — while connecting directly with Delaware’s vibrant Caribbean community.
“It made sense with what we were doing with film,” Whilby said. “Being in Delaware, it’s an advantage for our filmmakers for them to see it, experience it and see a town that they probably wouldn’t normally go to. We have a big Caribbean diaspora in Delaware, believe it or not. ”
For Whilby and filmmakers like Prendergast, the festival offers an opportunity to celebrate Caribbean stories being told today, while reconnecting with a piece of the history already woven into Wilmington.
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