Opening Note
Antigua and Barbuda spent the first week of November hosting the Commonwealth. This week, it turns that attention to its own artists. The island held the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in St. John’s from November 1 to 4, the smallest country ever to stage it, and the fourth Antigua and Barbuda Art Week opens Wednesday and runs through November 18. Its centerpiece, Dual Thresholds from Quay Barracks Art Galleries, is 28 reclaimed wooden doors, each painted on both sides by a local artist and slated to debut for CHOGM delegates before opening to the public.
The Barracks Gallery is showing the late Maria Ross Iztueta (1934–2024), curated by Stephen Murphy with her daughter Amaya. More than 30 artists hang in the Tourism Authority’s main exhibition at the new E.T. Henry Gallery on Redcliffe Quay, the Roots Krokus Collective stages Antiguan folklore at Makŏ Fine Art Gallery, and artist-designed doors greet travelers in the arrivals hall at V.C. Bird International. The program leans on participation: an Art Trail where visitors vote for a favorite artist, a live Art Battle on November 14, and Art After Dark on November 17. The heads of government have flown home. The doors stay open.
The Pulse
- Jamaica’s film spend halves after Melissa: The Planning Institute’s Economic and Social Survey puts 2025 production spending at US$4.91 million, down 54%, even as JAMPRO and the Film Commission supported 77 productions, up to 4%, with fewer big-budget shoots and temporary production jobs down from 1,637 to 1,002. jamaica-gleaner.com
- The Latin Grammys arrive with the Spanish Caribbean on the margins: No Puerto Rican, Dominican or Cuban performer sits among the acts with four or more nominations going into Thursday’s ceremony in Las Vegas, while Cuban nominees including Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Omara Portuondo, Tania León and Leoni Torres carry the island into the room. latintimes.com, diariodecuba.com
- Martinique sings with Santiago de Cuba: The 12th Festival Lyrique du Lamentin runs free through November 13 across five communes, marking 30 years of twinning between Le Lamentin and Santiago de Cuba with Cuban, Guadeloupean and Martiniquais singers in churches, markets and squares. outremers360.com
- Enoc Pérez paints between places: The San Juan-born, New York-based painter opens Entre Lugares at Obra Galería Alegría in San Juan on November 12, oils that move from a Luquillo landscape and Condado palms after Hurricane María to the Empire State Building and a portrait of Bad Bunny. elnuevodia.com
- Hurvin Anderson takes over Brixton station: The British painter unveils the tenth Brixton Mural for Art on the Underground on November 19, drawing on his ties to the area, where he has kept a Tulse Hill studio since 1998. art.tfl.gov.uk
Market & Opportunities
Curaçao International Film Festival 2027: Caribbean Focus and Watapana Shorts. CIFF’s 13th edition runs April 13 to 18, 2027, and its regional sections are open to filmmakers living in Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius, Saba and Suriname, or from those places and working in the diaspora. Caribbean Focus takes features and documentaries of 45 minutes or longer; Watapana Shorts takes fiction and nonfiction under 45 minutes. Selected shorts compete for the Watapana Award: 5,000 Caribbean guilders to the winner, 1,500 to the runner-up, plus screenings at the Morelia International Film Festival and Film by the Sea in the Netherlands. Films must be completed between January 2025 and December 2026, with English or Dutch subtitles, and the festival prefers premieres. Entry is free. Deadline December.
CIFF 2027: Yellow Robin Competition. The festival’s flagship competition screens first or second features, 60 minutes or longer and completed in 2025 or later, by filmmakers living or working in the Caribbean and the Caribbean basin, including coastal Central and South America, or in the diaspora. The jury prize is US8,000.Submission is free; the festival does not pay screening fees, selected films screen from a DCP, and it will cover up to US 200 of DCP costs. Email ciff2027.submissions@gmail.com with a viewing link, synopsis, director bio and countries of production by midnight December 15. Few Caribbean competitions pair real prize money with no entry fee. curacaoiff.com/call-for-entry-yellow-robin-competition
Release Radar
Shenseea’s Catalyst arrived November 6 on Since ’93 and Columbia, an eight-track EP with Vybz Kartel on “Talk To Me Nuh,” Asake on “Playtime” and Loe Shimmy on “Private,” her first major body of work since the Grammy-nominated Never Gets Late Here. Intence released the five-track EKE DAY on VP Records the same day, led by a video for “Let It Off.” On screen, Sosiessia Nixon-Kelly’s thriller Stew Peas is playing Caribbean Cinemas in Antigua, Barbados, Guyana, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, Trinidad and Tobago and the US Virgin Islands, the first Jamaican film the chain has distributed.
Creator Spotlight: Sosiessia Nixon-Kelly (Filmmaker)
What are you telling now? Nixon-Kelly wrote, directed and produced Stew Peas, her first feature, after more than ten shorts, including 2023’s Raw Material, which she told the Gleaner won more than 23 festival awards. The film began as a joke about food and became a script in two weeks, after a friend from Africa described traditions carried across to Jamaica.
The result is a psychological thriller: detective Tessa Riley, played by media personality Chiney K, investigates her best friend’s murder while a housekeeper with a secret ingredient works on her marriage from inside the house. Shot entirely in Kingston, it premiered at Carib 5 on June 27, held Jamaican screens for nearly three months, and goes to a limited U.S. release in January 2027. She is head of film and television at iKon Media & Films and teaches screenwriting at Northern Caribbean University, and her bio credits her as the first Jamaican filmmaker to have a local film qualify for an Oscar nomination.
Where can we follow / support you? See Stew Peas at caribbeancinemas.com | kweli.tv/creator/sosiessia-nixon | jamaica-gleaner.com
On the Circuit
November
- Festival Lyrique du Lamentin | now through November 13, Martinique | officedelaculturedulamentin.com
- Jamaica Poets Nomadic College and School Tour | now through November 13, islandwide, Jamaica
- CINEMANIA | now through November 15, Montreal. Guadeloupe roundtable November 12, Guadeloupe series November 14 | festivalcinemania.com
- International Puerto Rican Heritage Film Festival, 16th edition | November 10 – 15, New York | iprhff.org
- Antigua and Barbuda Art Week | November 11 – 18, Antigua and Barbuda | visitantiguabarbuda.com/artweek
- DOC NYC | November 11 – 19, New York | docnyc.net
- Enoc Pérez, Entre Lugares | opens November 12, Obra Galería Alegría, San Juan
- Latin Grammy Awards | November 12, Las Vegas | latingrammy.com
- Miami Book Fair | November 15 – 22, Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus | miamibookfair.com
- Édouard Duval-Carrié, From Venice with Love | through November 15, The Betsy, Miami | https://www.thebetsyhotel.com/explore/exhibitions/edouard-duval-carrie
- Grammy nominations announced | November 16
- National Book Awards | November 18, New York. Edwidge Danticat’s Dèy is a fiction finalist | nationalbook.org
- Hurvin Anderson, tenth Brixton Mural | November 19, Brixton Underground station, London | art.tfl.gov.uk
- Garifuna Settlement Day | November 19, Belize
- CaFA Fair, first New York edition | November 20 – 22, 208 East 126th Street, Harlem | cafafair.com
- Jab, J’ouvert, Revelry and Resistance | through November 21, CCCADI Firehouse, Harlem | cccadi.org
- Cayman Pirates Fest | through November 21, Cayman Islands | daily.ky/guides/pirates-week-cayman-islands/
- SILA / DEMSELF / AGBETEGBÉE / EFTERLIV | opens November 21, CMCArts, Frederiksted, St. Croix | cmcarts.org
- Venice Biennale: Bahamas, Grenada and Haiti pavilions | through November 22, Venice | labiennale.org
- Rafael Trelles, Caliban | November 26 – January 16, October Gallery, London | octobergallery.co.uk
- SounDown Music & Arts Festival | November 28 – 29, Guyana Marriott, Georgetown | guyanago.org/events/371
- Barbados 60th Anniversary of Independence | November 30, Garrison Savannah, Barbados
December
- Havana Film Festival | December 3 – 13, Havana | habanafilmfestival.com
- Mois Kréyol | through December 6, France, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyane
- Bahamas International Film Festival | December 7 – 9 Harbour Island, December 10 – 14 Nassau. Nicole Avant is guest of honour | bintlfilmfest.com
- KESmas | December 18 Toronto, December 19 Brooklyn | kestheband.com
Long runs
- Laas / Absan / Peldía: Caribbean Cinema Cultures | through January 31, 2027, Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, MI | broadmuseum.msu.edu
- After the Island: Caribbean Canadian Ceramics | through April 25, 2027, Gardiner Museum, Toronto | gardinermuseum.on.ca
- Joiri Minaya, To Hell with Hibiscus | through May 2, 2027, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle | henryart.org/exhibitions/joiri-minaya
- An Introduction to Van Lévé | through June 5, 2027, Alain Locke Gallery, Cambridge, MA | lockegallery.fas.harvard.edu
Deadlines
- CaribbeanTales International Film Festival, early-bird | November 30 | filmfreeway.com/CaribbeanTales
- Curaçao IFF 2027, Caribbean Focus and Watapana Shorts | December 1 | curacaoiff.com
- Cove Park Awarded Residencies 2027 – 2028 | December 11 | covepark.org
- Curaçao IFF 2027, Yellow Robin Competition | December 15 | curacaoiff.com
- Sony Future Filmmaker Awards | December 15 | sonyfuturefilmmakerawards.com
- OCM Bocas Prize, second deadline (books published November to December) | January 4, 2027 | bocaslitfest.com
- Miami Film Festival 2027, extended | January 8, 2027 | miamifilmfestival.com
Opening soon
- Sundance Institute 2027 Producers Track | applications open November 17 | sundance.org
- Cine Qua Non Lab, Script Revision Lab 2027 | call opens January 2027 | cqnl.org
Last Look
In St. John’s this week, the welcome comes painted on a door.
