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A record-breaking 16 Jamaican short films will be showcased at this year’s GATFFEST, which positions itself as Jamaica’s premier community film event. Now celebrating its 13th staging, the film festival runs from June 1–8 in Kingston, and is expected to beckon “filmmakers, students, scholars, and audiences from across the Caribbean and beyond”. In total, 34 films from 13 countries will be shown.
Festival Director Savannah Peridot, shared that the festival “isn’t just growing, it’s evolving”.
“Our goal is to empower, educate, and elevate through the lens of film. It’s a space where everyday voices, community struggles, and real-life experiences can shine on the big screen. We’re presenting four hours of authentic Jamaican stories on the big screen. The quality, talent, and creativity this year are simply phenomenal,” Peridot said.
Dr Tomlin Paul, vice principal of the UWI Mona Campus, noted that: “GATFFEST is a powerful example of how the creative arts can drive meaningful social change” and that, “its emphasis on grassroots engagement, cultural identity, and social awareness aligns strongly with UWI’s mission to support education, empowerment, and community development”.
At the launch last weekend, held at the Bob Marley Museum, it was revealed that the festival will open with the première of Spiritual Resistance, a documentary that takes a deep dive into the practice known as obeah.
The treatment describes it as “a powerful documentary that sheds light on the resilience of enslaved Africans who maintained their spiritual traditions despite the brutal forces of colonialism”.
Directed by Eka Campbell, it is produced by the Centre for Community Outreach and Development, and sponsored by the Bob and Rita Marley Foundation.
Mitzie Williams, communications manager with the Bob and Rita Marley Foundation, explained that the entity has supported the festival by providing scholarships for emerging filmmakers and added that they were happy to sponsor Spiritual Resistance.
“Savannah [Peridot] said that she had reservations about approaching us to sponsor this documentary, but we are very supportive of it, because it is a part of our culture ... our African retention. And I think we really need to know something more about it because obeah is shrouded in secrecy and mystique,” Williams told The Gleaner.
AIM
Director Campbell emphasised that the documentary aims to “get rid of that stigma around obeah,” while also exploring how obeah became demonised.
“What we have to look at is that the law of obeah is about 130 years old. It was put in by the British when we were colonised ... and that was put in because they were scared. Just imagine this: they (the colonial authorities) are seeing a lot of people in crowds, drumming and chanting around candles – and that is one of the practices that they brought from Africa. And so, they labelled everything the same – Revivalist, Kumina, Rastafari – all of them they [sometimes] labelled under the obeah law, which still stands today,” Campbell said.
She pointed out that a young man from Montego Bay was recently charged with obeah.
“The thing with the Obeah Act is that the police don’t need a warrant to go in. Back in slavery, when the enslaved people were practising their spirituality, they were whipped and anybody was guilty by association. So, if your mother was practising obeah, your whole family would get lashed,” she added.
Looking at the “hypocrisy of the law”, Campbell noted that if a person goes to church and the priest performs a ritual of rubbing some oil on the congregant, lights a candle and says a prayer, that is not seen as obeah. However, if that same person goes into his or her backyard, and lights some candles and says a prayer “they are going to say that you are practising obeah”.
“And not only that, if you look at COVID-19. If you go around and ask people ‘Do you think obeah works?’ they would say ‘no’. But, if you ask them if they take bush tea when they are ill, they will say ‘Yes’. Well, that is classified as obeah. For COVID-19, when we look at Jamaica, we had the highest vaccine hesitancy, but we had the lowest COVID people. Why? Because we are a bush nation. We go into the garden, we pick our bush and we cure ourselves,” Campbell stated, adding “let’s remember that this law is an anti-blackness law”.
The film, which has a potent message of “not being ashamed of our African roots”, will also be showcased at the Africa in Transition Conference in Ghana later this year.
The weeklong schedule includes: Embassy Film Nights (June 2–4), with film selections from Colombia, Germany, and France; CARIMAC Student Film Night (June 5); International Film Night (June 6) at Palace Cineplex; and Jamaican Film Night (June 7) at Palace Cineplex.
The awards ceremony takes place on June 8 at The Ruins, UWI Mona.
Founded in 2013 by Professor Ian Boxill as the Greater August Town Film Festival, GATFFEST originated as an initiative to showcase stories from underserved communities through the UWI Community Film Project.
Most events are free and open to the public.
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