Miami's Third Horizon Launches Streaming Service for Caribbean Film

Each year at the start of summer, Miami hosts one of the most interesting film festivals in the world. Hosting a suite of cutting-edge Caribbean cinema, from experimental shorts to unseen classics, Third Horizon Film Festival arrives in the city for one bright, yet sadly brief weekend at the end of each May. Over the years, it's emerged as a crucial gathering for creatives in the region.

"I feel like Miami serves as a hub for the Caribbean," says Justen Blaize, co-founder of the Third Horizon collective. "This is the melting pot in the South. In the North, it's New York, and in the South, it's Miami. And I think one of the beautiful things that at least we've done with the festival is being able to recognize how interconnected we are, how our stories relate."

Now, the organization is expanding those connections by allowing film lovers to engage with Third Horizon films year-round. The collective has just relaunched Anansi TV, an online service offering access to great cinema from the Caribbean and Global South. The site launched on Tuesday, September 2, with around 100 films. It will add more, along with themed collections similar to what one might see on other streamers.

Blaize says the service, which previously existed in a different configuration, says the idea behind Anansi TV is to offer a curated experience similar to the festival in a more accessible, convenient way. It also gives Third Horizon films a more permanent home; the festival has previously curated streaming releases of its films for services like the Criterion Channel, which eventually lapsed as rights expired.

"I think this is our way of extending things past the festival," he says. "For people who are in Miami — they're able to experience the festival for the four days. But what happens after that? I think the work that we're doing is too important to stop at four days. I think it needs to be a continuous conversation throughout the rest of the year."
The current slate of films largely mirrors that of the festival's unorthodox and varied curation. Films from across the Caribbean and diaspora are available: from larger countries like Cuba, Jamaica, and Haiti to tiny islands such as St. Lucia and Barbados, and from Caribbean-descended filmmakers in the U.S., U.K., France, and the Netherlands. You'll find documentaries such as Ouvertures, investigating the demise of Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L'Ouverture, and the Sweetest Mango, a romantic comedy that is the first feature film from the small nation of Antigua and Barbuda.

Many films are shorts that would rarely be seen outside of a film festival context, let alone on another more commercial streamer. You might not find a film like the anti-colonial vampire flick Nosferasta: First Bite on HBO Max or Paramount+, but you'll find it on Anansi TV.

Offering these rarely-seen films is just one way Third Horizon aims to attract viewers in the crowded streaming market. Another is the site's business model: Each film is available for individual rental or purchase, with most running from $2.99 to $5.99 — less like Netflix and more like a digital video store. This approach avoids rights issues and ensures the films are accessible worldwide.
"At the moment, we've chosen to opt out of the subscription model," Blaize says. "There are so many so-called 'platforms,' and we don't want to be a platform. We actually shy away from even calling ourselves a platform, per se, and trying to be a Netflix, because there are already so many of them out there. But how do we build something that's still valuable, so accessible it has the functions of these sites that are out there, but isn't viewed in the same way?"

He compares Anansi's approach to building a library or archive. To that end, the service also aims to offer educational licenses to universities and other academic institutions. That approach is more compatible with Third Horizon's ethos, which is less concerned with profit and more with keeping Caribbean films alive and accessible for as large an audience as possible and making sure Caribbean stories are authentically told by Caribbeans.

"We get to have some ownership in how we tell our stories," says Blaize. "We can curate how we're identifying ourselves and how we're choosing to expose ourselves to the world. I think that, particularly, is the biggest advantage."

Visit Anansi at anansi.tv.