It’s almost Carnival season, and this year we’re celebrating together through our screens.

In honor of Carnival traditions around the world, JouvayFest Collective and Sabira Cole Film Festival are partnering to present Mout’ Open, Story Jump Out!, a film series exploring and celebrating Caribbean culture.

The series kicks off with documentary film Calypso Dreams (2004). The rise of Calypso music is closely tied to Carnival traditions in Trinidad and Tobago, and this film captures the complex history and dynamic energy of the art form.

With a surprisingly hard-worn urban edge to its tropical setting, Calypso Dreams shatters the popularized perception of calypso spawned in the 1950s by Harry Belafonte and provides a contextual framework for the music's political and anti-colonial roots.  This charming film is a cultural rediscovery of a musical tradition that has been thriving in anonymity for decades.

The program concludes with a panel discussion with the film makers and David Rudder, one of the world's most successful calypsonians.

Alvin C. Daniell BSc. MSc.  is a composer, producer and researcher and is the Managing Director of MAJOR & minor Productions. He has done television colour commentary on Calypso and Steel band live competitions since 1986 and is considered a reliable resource on the history of Calypso and the Steel Band movement. 

David Michael Rudder is a Trinidadian calypso musician, known to be one of the most successful calypsonians of all time. His career started as lead singer for the brass band Charlie's Roots. In 1986 he began his solo calypsonian career, which was followed by an unprecedented rise to fame. 

Geoffrey Dunn has produced and directed more than a dozen documentary films, three of which have qualified for Academy Award nominations. Dunn currently serves as lecturer in Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of the award-winning book, Santa Cruz Is in the Heart, and was recently awarded a prestigious Gail Rich Award for his contributions to the arts and culture.

JouvayFest Collective is a Brooklyn based collective, actively presenting new films of Caribbean oriented features, documentaries, and shorts, with the intent to present online “edutainment” and events critical to maintaining the connections among the African Diaspora. JFC has taken their theatrical performances, street processions & music workshops to Morocco, Ivory Coast,  Senegal and beyond.

Sabira Cole Film Festival was built on the foundation of the Sembene: Film and Arts Festival, working with key partners in Pittsburgh, PA to screen a well-curated selection of new and old films from the African Diaspora, continuing the tradition of film screenings, discussion, & community building with a new annual juried film festival that highlights issues and representation of people from global indigenous communities.

Calypso Dreams Film Screening presented by SCFF & Jouvayfest Collective