Meet The Women Behind The Caribbean’s Bold New Film Festival – Essence

For years, Caribbean stories have been filtered through the lens of outsiders — packaged for tourists, stripped of complexity or flattened into stereotypes. But two powerhouse women are changing that. 

The Caribbean Film Festival made its debut in Trinidad and Tobago on June 11th. With a spotlight on filmmakers from islands like Haiti, Jamaica, Guadeloupe, and, of course, Trinidad, the Festival is reclaiming Caribbean narratives — and putting Black women at the center of the lens.

At the helm are Asha Lovelace, Chief Executive Officer and Festival Director, and Melanie Jones Powell, the Festival’s Executive Director and creative force behind the scenes. Together, they’ve created not just a platform but a movement rooted in authenticity and purpose.

“This is a festival run by filmmakers, created by filmmakers,” says Powell. “We don’t want to profit off the stories. We want to tell them. We are here for the culture.”

A filmmaker and media strategist, Powell knows how to get things done. She jokes that she wears “every hat” for the festival — coordinator, marketer, strategist and sounding board — but it’s clear her passion fuels every detail, right down to the opening visuals. The festival kicked off with “Water Devil,” a surreal short film showing a blue devil — a folklore figure — rising from underwater.

“It represents the birth of this film festival,” she explains. “We felt like it was important to go back to the stories from our childhood growing up in the Caribbean, like the blue devil and have that represented, especially for the first year of the festival.”

Lovelace, daughter of legendary Trinidadian writer Earl Lovelace, brings a deep creative lineage to the project. She first found storytelling in books — and then imagined them as films.

“It’s not enough to simply be audiences of cinema — we must be creators,” she says. “We must be active participants in the production of films that come from our own perspectives, shaped by our histories, our questions, our rhythms, our landscapes and our stories.”

Her past work with Africa Film TT shaped the blueprint for this new festival.

“I really want to get away from the thing, ‘I saw this fantastic Hollywood film and I want to do something like that in Trinidad,’” says Lovelace. “I want to say this is who we are but we want to tell it on our own terms.”

And that’s exactly what they did. Zion, a gripping film exposing social issues in Guadeloupe, was the premiere feature film shown on opening night of the five-day festival.

“There’s a scene where the cruise ship was passing by the street and you have riots just about 20 feet away,” says Powell. “And that was just a perfect example of the two different lives… I just thought that scene was such a powerful two seconds that spoke to so much.”

For documentary filmmaker Margaret McEvoy, who grew up in Trinidad and now lives in the U.S., the festival feels like a homecoming.

“It’s amazing,” said McEvoy. “I think for a long time we’ve had underrepresentation for many reasons…and I think we really turned that corner.”

She praised Zion for both its production quality and thematic depth.

“There’s a thinking about (Caribbean films) that the quality might not be as high,” McEvoy says, “but the production value was incredibly strong.”

But this festival isn’t just about what’s onscreen — it’s about who’s behind the camera.

“At a time when we are seeing rising waves of xenophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment and cultural erasure in places like the U.S. and across Europe — where people who look like us, speak like us or come from places like ours are being smothered, policed or pushed out — the need to tell our own stories becomes even more urgent,” says Lovelace.

The festival’s focus on representation extends beyond Caribbean identity — it also challenges gender norms. Powell wants people to know that women are capable of doing anything they want to do, even within male-dominated industries.

“While statistics might show that it is,” she explains, “I feel like that representation is so important: showing Black women your stories matter.”

The opening night debuted to a sold-out audience — a proud moment for Lovelace.

“It really is an affirmation that what we do is important work,” she says. “This is just a start.”

While the Caribbean Film Festival’s roots remain firmly planted in Trinidad, the long-term vision includes bringing the event to other countries across the region.