The closing night of the third annual Film and Folklore Festival saw poet, playwright, and activist Eintou Pearl Springer receiving the inaugural Papa Bois Award for her contribution to cultural preservation.
During the event, which aired Monday night on the festival's YouTube page and the Digicel PlayGo app, Festival Manager Donelle Wills announced the very first Papa Bois Award "for (her) excellence and dedication to preserving our culture and our heritage through stories. May you continue to promote our folk traditions in Trinidad and Tobago." Donelle Wills
There was then a video clip of Springer holding the award and praising the festival.
"I just want to congratulate the Film and Folklore Festival and thank them for giving me this beautiful Papa Bois Award. Stories are extremely important. They can create an alternative pedagogy which can give to our society, and in particular our children, the values and the attitudes that are absent from the formal school curriculum." - Eintou Pearl Springer
She thanked the festival team and her own "team," her daughter and grandsons. The award was sponsored by the TT Solid Waste Management Company (SWMCOL).
The closing night opened with entertainer Thaddy Boom in costume as mythical forest protector Papa Bois telling the story of how Anansi tricked his way into owning all the stories of the world. Boom's strong delivery and some stellar cinematography helped to capture the magic of the fantastical tale.
After Papa Bois returned to the shadows it was time for the dark short film Fruit Vendor, written and directed by Annisia Cadogan and from a story by Gary Hodge. It is about the titular fruit vendor (played by the hunky Russell Wilkinson-Taitt) who gives an attractive shopper (Eve Hamel-Smith) a tour of his lands. But the fruit vendor comes from a family with a twisted and bloody past that has soaked its way into the present. And he also holds a secret that has very lethal consequences.
The Fruit Vendor short was followed by a clip of Bianca Hamel Smith De Guerrero at Mariposa Café in Lopinot chatting about the process of grinding roasted coffee beans.
Following that freshly-brewed clip historian Dr Cyrill Collier took the screen and spoke about tales of jumbies while a young boy in Tobago.
"I believe in spirits, but not in jumbies. Some people think that jumbies are the dead (and) after three or four days buried (then) the spirit rises. They roam the place and the people see them. And there are actually instances of where people actually see people who died walk around in the night, especially the night, around people." Dr Cyril Collier
Dr Collier shared his experience of being visited by the spirit of his late mother as a child and another incident of him and his friends encountering a female spirit in Lambeau.
The closing night closed with Wills thanking people for attending as well as the sponsors and festival partners. She also encouraged people to download the Digicel PlayGo app to view the festival's films which will be available until June 14.