CSIFF Fest Director Magaly Colimon-Christopher talks with three CSIFF26 writer-directors about identity, family, belonging, and home.
🇯🇲🇨🇦 Wayne Carnegie — The Star Boy uses animation to connect Caribbean diaspora children with their roots and the experience of going “back home.”
🇭🇹 Katiana Farrier — Green explores Haitian-American identity, family, and the diaspora question: Is the grass really greener away from home?
🇰🇳 Juliette Jeffers — Pan Gyul transforms her Nevis-rooted one-woman show into a film celebrating steel pan and the women and girls who play it.
🏆 Award Nominee: Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay & Best Cinematographer (Michelle Clementine)
CSIFF26 filmmakers Stacey Sargeant and Mason Teixeira talk about the experiences behind their films and how Caribbean heritage shapes their storytelling.
🎬 Stacey Sargeant — Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
Inspired by a real encounter on a NYC train, Stacey’s film centers Black women, boundaries, generational patterns, and the right to take up space unapologetically.
🏆 Nominated for Best Film, Best Director, Best Cinematographer & Best Lead Performer
🎨 Mason Teixeira — Suspicious
Belizean-American animator Mason Teixeira turns the familiar neighborhood watch “suspicious person” sign on its head, exploring surveillance, assumptions, and who gets perceived as dangerous. CSIFF26 marks the film’s first festival screening.
🏆 Nominated for Best Animation
What happens when you don’t see your stories on screen?
You tell them yourself.
🇵🇷 Carmen Iris Santiago — Unbroken
Inspired by her work combating displacement in Puerto Rico, Carmen uses dance, music, and imagery to explore resistance and what it means to remain “unbroken.”
🇬🇾 Noella Letitia Mingo — My Dad, Guyana, & Me + Mummy
British-Guyanese filmmaker Noella explores heritage, home, family, and trauma—creating the stories she wasn’t seeing after decades working in the industry.
Two filmmakers. Three films. Caribbean stories told through their own eyes.
What can a Trinidadian folklore demon and a quiet story about leaving home reveal about Caribbean life?
In this CSIFF26 Filmmaker Chat, Festival Director Magaly Colimon-Christopher sits down with Jonathan Jagdeo, writer/director of THE DOUEN, and Christelle Powell, director of FROM FORTUNE.
Jonathan brings Trinidadian folklore into the horror genre while exploring relationships, family and acceptance. Christelle draws from her Dominican and Sint Maarten heritage to explore migration, opportunity and what happens when leaving home changes the way we see it.
Together, they show just how expansive Caribbean cinema can be.
Meet two artists bringing distinctive Caribbean perspectives to CSIFF26.
🇵🇷 Lidsy R. Trabal Casasús — Where the Waves End
A Puerto Rican filmmaker and visual artist exploring human connection and our inner emotional worlds.
🇦🇼 Velvet Zoé Ramos — Adrift Wak Leu
An Aruban interdisciplinary artist exploring empathy, identity, memory, and transformation through film.
🏆 Adrift Wak Leu is nominated for Best Experimental Film.
Discover their stories at CSIFF26.
Two CSIFF26 filmmakers exploring family, identity, and colorism through deeply personal stories.
🇨🇺 Gabriela Paciel — I F-ing Hate You
Inspired by her own sister, Gabriela uses comedy, passion, and action to explore the messy mix of conflict, loyalty, and love between siblings.
🇯🇲 Hanif James — A Shade of Indigo
Inspired by his family’s experiences with colorism, Hanif explores skin tone, beauty, and the messages about worth passed from one generation to the next.
Two Caribbean stories about family—and the experiences we inherit.
What connects a Brooklyn rent crisis, an outrageous party and an alien apocalypse? Caribbean filmmakers telling the stories they want to tell.
In this CSIFF26 Filmmaker Chat, Festival Director Magaly Colimon-Christopher sits down with Haitian-American filmmaker DeeDee Casimir, writer-director of Last Hoorah at G-Baby’s, and Dominican-Antiguan animator Dana M Wright, creator of 2012: What Happened in 2012.
Their conversation moves through grief, gentrification, animation, diaspora identity, Haitian-American womanhood and creative freedom—revealing two artists with completely different approaches and a shared determination to make work on their own terms.
Who gets to tell our Caribbean stories?
Jamaican filmmakers Mikey T. Camel and Laurie Lambert talk about culture, migration, tradition, and telling our own stories.
🇯🇲 Beg You A Call explores isolation, assimilation, and the emotional realities of leaving home.
🇯🇲 Tambu celebrates Jamaican folk traditions, including Kumina, Jonkonnu, and Dinkyminie, and the importance of passing culture to the next generation.
Two films. Two perspectives on preserving Jamaican culture through storytelling.
What makes a film Caribbean?
🇯🇲 Lesley-Ann Wanliss — Bright Sparks explores grief, hope, and possibility through the story of a young boy in Kingston.
🇹🇹 Ria Vieira — Isaiah’s Glass Goes Down Easy draws from her Trinidadian-American experience to explore belonging and what happens when we suppress parts of ourselves to fit in.
Two very different films. One expansive view of Caribbean identity and cinema.
Join co-hosts Magaly Colimon-Christopher (CSP Artist Chat) and Maëlla Kancel (Karukerament Podcast) for the final episode of our four-part series exploring the past, present, and future of Caribbean cinema.
This season finale features:
Gabri Christa — Curaçaoan-American filmmaker, choreographer, and multidisciplinary artist
Yannick Rosine — Guadeloupean producer, screenwriter, and director
In this special CSIFF + Karukerament, Magaly Colimon-Christopher and Maëlla Kancel welcome British Virgin Islands Film Commissioner Natalie O. Hodge to discuss the future of Caribbean cinema.
Together, they explore building sustainable film industries, supporting emerging filmmakers, strengthening regional collaboration, expanding global visibility, and the vital role film festivals, media, and film commissions play in advancing Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora storytelling worldwide.
With Spanish subtitles.
(Visit our Youtube channel for French & English subtitle versions)
Featuring special guests:
Rachel Moseley-Wood Senior Lecturer in the Department of Literatures in English at The University of the West Indies, Mona. She is the author of Show Us as We Are: Place, Nation and Identity in Jamaican Film and has published extensively on Anglophone Caribbean film, cinema culture, and moviegoing.
Guillaume Robillard Adjunct Lecturer at the Université des Antilles with a PhD in Film Studies from Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He is the author of two books on French Caribbean cinema: Conquête de l’espace et du temps : le cinéma antillais and Un cinéma décolonial : les personnages du cinéma antillais.
This conversation explores: Caribbean cinema and national identity; decolonial storytelling and representation; film history, memory, and audience engagement; how Caribbean cinema continues to evolve on the global stage.
Conch Shell International Film Fest x Karukerament Podcast: a CSP Artist Chat Special Edition Series
Guest Artists:
Hans Augustave (Nwa — CSIFF 2024 Award Nominee)
Jacquil Constant (Haiti Is a Nation of Artists— CSIFF 2024 Special Screening)
Calyx Passailaigue (Zeen— CSIFF 2024 Award Nominee)
Moderated by Magaly Colimon-Christopher (CSP Artist Chat) Maëlla Kancel (Karukerament Podcast)
This conversation bridges generations of Caribbean storytelling.
This is how we document our cinematic history. This is how we build the future.
Conch Shell International Film Fest
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