BEHIND THE BLUE IN LIVING COLOUR
DON’T BE GLUM THE CTFF IS ENDING ON A BLUE NOTE 
The movie presentations and the closing ceremonies for the Film Festival take place on Sunday night at the Harbourfront Centre, 235 Queens Quay W. The event runs from 7 pm until 10 pm, and as of this writing, tickets are still available.
This Sunday night’s audience that catches the documentary, "Behind the Blue," as it closes out the annual Caribbean Tales Film Festival should yell out "Encore." Hopefully, director Kenderson Noray will hear the call and give it another Toronto run (around 2024 Carnival time, please).
Behind the Blue is the history of the Paramin Blue Devil. It is a film all about the Blue Devil bands who continue to tell their stories of triumphs and failures while scaring the living daylights out of those not in the know.
Both in Trinidad and Toronto, the Blue Devil has taken part in the Jab Jab J’ouvert. But here in Toronto, their role has diminished at the annual carnival, and many don't understand why they dance and preenion the parade blue route.
“The Blue Devil in competition always appears as a pair - The King Devil and the minion who restrains the devil from the world,” Noray told the media before a screening in Paramin in April. “'Pay the devil,' if the devil isn't paid, he will be released on the earth.”
“Secondly,” he continued, "it is a performative, trance-like transformation brought on by dancing to the pan (burnt biscuit tins used as a percussive instrument), truly becoming a physical embodiment of the devil and the annual parade!”
Colourful. Loud. The dialect is a bit hard to understand, but we do get subtitles when the going gets really ough. This is cinema learning with a Trini accent, bring along the popcorn for maximum enjoyment.
The camera work is amazing, with a drone camera soaring high over the northern mountain range, capturing the blue men and women wearing wings and horns as they run through the village streets and forest trails.
The camera's eye is trained on all the Blue Devil bands, including New Management, The King of the Hills Blue Devil Band, the House of the Blue Devil, and Generation Next.
Without giving away any trade secrets, the paint that covers the characters' bodies can withstand bad weather because it is made from blue dye, lard, and boiled water!
Over the course of the 67-minute movie, we watch as the bands train for the 2019 competition.
The Black Cape Film is making its Canadian premiere on the closing night of the 2023 Caribbean Tales Film Festival. It is showing alongside DỌLÁPỌ is Fine (UK 2020, 15 min) and Yubismo: Life and Art of Yubi Kirindongo (Curaçao 2022, 1 hr).
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