Kambule (2022)

Overview

Writer and filmmaker Maya Cozier draws from her experience as a dancer and choreographer to create works that focus on West African and Caribbean history and culture. Kambule (2022), based on a play by Eintou Springer, narrates how certain traditions specific to contemporary Trinidad Carnival celebrations trace back to the Canboulay Riots of 1881. Colonial police were deployed then to suppress the procession
of Carnival revellers carrying burning sugarcane in memory of their forebears who had processed in a similar manner to celebrate the abolition of slavery in 1838. Honouring spontaneous rebellions that took place across Port of Spain, the film features re-enactments of the pushback, weaving in narratives and reminiscences of activists and playwrights.