25 Years Of Jr. Junkanoo

This year BIFF, Esso Bahamas Limited and BTC are pleased to provide the Youth of our nation with the opportunity to learn how to make a film in a day. 15 students from 4 schools: C.C. Sweeting, Woodcock Primary, A.F. Adderley Jr. HIgh School, C.R. Walker, participated in making a film in a day. The making of this year’s film is “25 Years Of Junior Junkanoo.”  This exciting project will educate students on the art of film-making and give them an opportunity to tell the world the story of Junior Junkanoo.  The Premiere will be unveiled before the BIFF Closing Night Film, December 9 at 6:30pm.

A Man With A Voice

A Man with a Voice:  Chronicles the Bahamian legend, Norman Soloman. Norman Soloman, a journalist, politician, an activist and a business man.  This film sheds light on his journey while also illuminating the changing political landscape of of our pre-independent Bahamas to recent.

Alekesam

Hugh Masekela - musician, activist and father was exiled from his family and native South Africa for over 30 years as a direct result of Apartheid. Undaunted, he would find musical success in America with the 1968 number one hit, Grazin' In The Grass, and in 1971 he would father a son, Selema Mabena Masekela.

Arise

Arise captures the portraits and stories of extraordinary women around the world who are coming together to heal the injustices against the earth. The film weaves together poetry, music, art and stunning scenery to create a hopeful and collective story that inspires us to work for the earth. Our film shows how women are becoming self-sustainable, feeding their children, re-building their communities and bringing about environmental stability.

Baseball In The TIme Of Cholera

As the cholera epidemic rages in Haiti, the UN denies responsibility for introducing the disease despite mounting evidence. This is the story of Joseph, a young baseball player, and a Haitian lawyer fighting for compensation for the victims. As the epidemic spreads, the two stories intersect in the struggle for survival and justice.

Beware Of Mr. Baker

Ginger Baker is known for playing in Cream and Blind Faith, but the world's greatest drummer didn’t hit his stride until 1972, when he arrived in Nigeria and discovered Fela Kuti's Afrobeat. After leaving Nigeria, Ginger returned to his pattern of drug-induced self-destruction, eventually settling in South Africa, where the 73-year-old lives with his young bride and 39 polo ponies. This documentary includes interviews with Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Carlos Santana and more. Beware of Mr. Baker! With every smash of the drum is a man smashing through life, and smashing the filmmaker’s nose on the last day of filming.

Breathe

William Trubridge attempts to break his own free diving record by going 300 feet with just two bare feet and one breath of air.

Brigidy Bram

Born June 25, 1936 in Nassau, Kendal Hanna is a painter and a sculptor known as one of the Bahamas' first abstract expressionists.  Early in Hanna's life he began experimenting with abstractions through a process which he describes as his "subconscious mind expressing itself on the canvas."  During his twenties, Hanna was diagnosed with schizophrenia and prescribed an electric shock therapy course of four treatments per week for an unknown period of time. Upon his release two years later, Hanna used art to recover his motor capabilities and mental acuity.  Now 75, Hanna has become one of the Bahamas' most celebrated artists, prolifically releasing work described as "carefully considered and contemplated, provocative and masterful." In BRIGIDY BRAM, Hanna reveals his inner and outer realities through his artworks, memories and one-of-a-kind sense of humor. The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas celebrated Kendal Hanna with a retrospective exhibition of his art on his 75th birthday. Board chair D. Gail Saunders wrote in the foreword to the catalog: "Kendal's life was a struggle, but in spite of the numerous difficulties and hurdles, he persisted with his art and endured.  His art, which is usually described as abstract, is not understood by everyone.  But many have come to love his work and have grown to recognize and connect with the passion he expresses in his paintings and sculpture.....A modest giant, Kendal Hanna today is counted among the leading Bahamian artists of our time."

Can't Stand Losing You

Based on the memoir by Andy Summers, Can’t Stand Losing You follows an extraordinary musical journey, from Summers’ early days on the English music scene to his chance encounter with drummer Stewart Copeland and bassist Sting, to the trio’s charttopping international success as The Police. The film includes exclusive interviews with the band members during The Police’s worldwide reunion tour, along with extensive concert footage proving they’re as vital as ever.

Dolphin Boy

After being brutally tortured by his classmates, Morad - a teenaged boy from an Arab village in the North of Israel - is suffering from a severe post-traumatic shock, disconnecting himself from the world around him.

Greedy Lying Bastards

What happens when one industry has too much power? Politicians become pawns. Laws are created and prevented. Regulations are bypassed. Information is controlled. Dissent is stifled. Our climate changes. And people die. 'Greedy Lying Bastards' presents a searing indictment of the influence, deceit and corruption that defines the fossil fuel industry. From the Gulf Coast to the tiny nation of Tuvalu, from Nigeria and Uganda to Peru and Alaska, filmmaker and political activist Craig Rosebraugh documents the impact of an industry that has continually put profits before people, waged a campaign of lies designed to thwart measures on climate change, used its clout to minimize infringing regulations and undermined the political process in the U.S. and abroad.

Haiti Untold

HAITI UNTOLD chronicles the personal journey of a few famous and not-so-famous individuals who have put their heads and hearts to the task of effecting radical change in Haiti, following the devastating earthquake of 2010.

I Am Not A Rock Star

Shot over eight years, MAKING MARIKA is the coming-of-age journey of fiery, Juilliard-trained pianist Marika Bournaki, who will stop at nothing to become a world-class concert pianist. Marika's parents never realized their youthful dreams in music and ballet, but saw her raw talent age age 5. Her father-turned-manager, Pierre, then risked everything -- including his career, family and marriage -- to make Marika into a star.

Inocente

INOCENTE is a personal and vibrant coming of age story about a young artist's determination never to surrender to the bleakness of her surroundings.  At 15, Inocente refuses to let her dream of becoming an artist be caged by being an undocumented immigrant forced to live homeless for the last nine years.  Color is her personal revolution and its sweep on her canvases creates a world that looks nothing like her own dark past. INOCENTE is both a timeless story about the transformative power of art and a timely snapshot of the new face of homelessness in America: children.  The challenges are staggering, but the hope in her story proves that her circumstances do not define her, her dreams do.

Jackson: Native Son

JACKSON BURNSIDE, NATIVE SON, chronicles the diverse life and times of this deeply respected Bahamian cultural icon. He loved his Bahamas with a burning passion, devoting his life to exposing the rich design, architecture & heritage of his native land. After his education abroad, and becoming an assistant to Louis I. Kahn, he returned to the Bahamas where he further developed his talents as a painter, architect, philosopher, mentor & Junkanoo.

Mulberry Child

After living in American for many years, Jian Ping finally finds the courage to write 'Mulberry Child', a book about her traumatic childhood during Mao's Cultural Revolution in China. A time when millions had their lives destroyed and their reputations ruined. Jian's father, Hou Kai, a high ranking government official, was one of those people. Sadly, Jian's American raised daughter Lisa has little interest in her Chinese roots or her mother's memoirs. But during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Lisa travels with her mother to China to visit her dying grandfather ,Hou Kai. It is on that journey that LIsa finally reads' Mulberry Child' and finds that her mother's past haunts her own future.

Oyster Rockefeller

Gibbon, raised by his overprotective mother and aunt, has never been outside. After discovering a take-out menu in the foyer, he begins to wonder what it means to become a man and see the world. On the anniversary of his grandfather's death, Lucy, an unexpected visitor arrives. Gibbon falls instantly in love at this first sign of the outside world.

Raise Your Hands

On Nelson Mandela's birthday, photographer Scott McDermott captured famous faces – e.g. Clint Eastwood, Robert DeNiro, Morgan Freeman - raising hands to pledge to improve their planet. In Kelly's film, writer Elliot Kotek ponders the experiences behind these simple gestures - war, peace, violence, freedom, fame, disease - and considers the impact of these hands on our environment.

Rising From Ashes

Rising from Ashes” is a feature length documentary about two worlds colliding when cycling legend Jock Boyer moves to Rwanda, Africa to help a group of struggling genocide survivors pursue their dream of a national team. As they set out against impossible odds both Jock and the team find new purpose as they rise from the ashes of their past.

Rules Of The Game

For the last 900 years, every Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday the residents of the quiet English town of Ashbourne have come out to play a crazy game of football. The goals are three miles apart and streets, rivers, tunnels, fields and 5000 people lie between them. If you are born north of the river you are an Up'ard and south a Down'ard, and on these two days the town is split by fierce but friendly rivalry, where families are divided and friends become foe. The only thing that matters is getting the ball to the goal.

She

SHE examines the lives of several female impersonators living in the CaribbeanDuring the annual Ms. Drag Bahamas beauty contest,Kevin Taylor and Kareem Mortimer speak to several drag performers and transgendered.

The Iran Job

THE IRAN JOB follows American basketball player Kevin Sheppard as he accepts a job to play in one of the world’s most feared countries: Iran. With tensions running high between Iran and the West, Kevin tries to separate sports from politics only to find that politics is impossible to escape in Iran.

This Ain't California

This Ain't California is a celebration of the lust for life, a contemporary documentary trip into the world of roller boarding in the German Democratic Republic. A coming-of-age tale of three teenagers and their passionate love for a sport on the crumbling tarmac of the streets in the German Democratic Republic, which was considered very ill-fitting. The punk fairy tale is a story of the subversive powers of fun in that part of Germany, which had lost touch with its citizens.The film follows its three heroes from their childhood in the seventies through their teenage rebellion in the eighties, ending in the last summer of their life in the German Democratic Republic in 1989, when their life changed forever. And follows them to 2011.

Uprising

Produced by an Academy Award-winning team including the Executive Producer of Taxi to the Dark Side and the Editor of Inside Job, UPRISING tells the inside story of the Egyptian revolution from the perspective of its principal leaders and organizers, including four Nobel Peace Prize nominees. Their success in forcing the downfall of a brutal dictatorship has changed the face of the Middle East and provided hope for millions of oppressed people across the world. Above all, it is a story of profound hope, of courage rewarded, of a people who beat back a police state and threw off the shackles of decades of degradation and oppression.

Without A Net

Womanish Ways, Freedom & Democracy

Five Bahamian women – Mary Ingraham, Georgiana Symonette, Mabel Walker, Eugenia Lockhart and Dr. Doris Johnson – led the Women’s Suffrage Movement in The Bahamas. The journey to female enfranchisement spanned more than a decade, and took place alongside the dramatic backdrop of the Burma Road Riots in 1942, the General Strike in 1958, the Labour Movement of the 1950s and the quest for Majority Rule. Bahamian women voted for the first time on November 26th 1962.