Puerto Rican-born screenwriter, Kisha Tikina Burgos, has been announced as the facilitator for this year’s RBC Focus: Filmmakers’ Immersion, at the 2016 trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff), taking place from 20–27 September.

The  RBC Focus: Filmmakers’ Immersion is an intensive development programme that provides 10 selected filmmakers from the Caribbean with the opportunity to learn from an internationally respected film professional. Aimed at sharpening the skills and abilities of participants, this year’s sessions will place emphasis on scriptwriting. Each filmmaker enters the programme with a concept for a feature-length fiction film, from which they will be expected to develop a detailed treatment. At the end of the programme, the participants will be given an opportunity to pitch their project to a jury, with the person judged to have made the best pitch winning TT$20,000 courtesy RBC Royal Bank.

Kisha Tikina Burgos will bring her extensive training, knowledge and experience of screenwriting to the programme. She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from Tisch School for the Arts at New York University, and attended  the San Antonio de los Baños International School of Film and TV  in Havana, Cuba.

Burgos has written screenplays for a number of Award-winning feature and short films. Her most recent, Before The Rooster Crows, won the Yellow Robin Award at the Curacao International Film Festival Rotterdam this year, and will screen at ttff/16. Her 2012 feature film Under My Nails, won the Special Jury Award at the San Juan International Film Festival and a Special Award at the Havana Film Festival. It was also acquired and shown by HBO (2013 – 2014).

The participants for RBC Focus: Filmmakers Immersion, which takes place from 23–27 September, will be announced soon.

The ttff celebrates films from and about the Caribbean and its diaspora, as well as from world cinema, through an annual festival and year-round screenings. In addition, the ttff seeks to facilitate the growth of Caribbean cinema by offering a wide-ranging industry programme and networking opportunities. The ttff is presented by Flow, given leading sponsorship by Trinidad and Tobago Film Company (FilmTT), and supporting sponsorship by RBC Royal Bank, The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago, the Tourism Development Company and the Embassy of the United States of America.