JAMAICAN FILMMAKER INA SOTIROVA SCORES FIVE CARIBBEAN FILM AWARDS NOMINATIONS ACROSS TWO FILMS KINGSTON.

Jamaica – Award-winning filmmaker Ina Sotirova’s work has received five nominations at the 2026 Caribbean Film Awards, spanning two distinctly Jamaican stories and reflecting Sotirova’s growing contribution to Caribbean cinema and the conversations around it.

Sotirova’s award-winning narrative short Stinky Mango secured three nominations: Best Short Film, Best Actor for Sheldon Shepherd, and the Caribbean Heritage Film Award, while her latest short, Sisters and the Storm, received a nomination for Best Documentary. Sotirova is also nominated for Best Emerging Filmmaker. The inaugural Caribbean Film Awards ceremony takes place October 10 in Wilmington, Delaware, with screenings and activities over the weekend celebrating Caribbean cinema, culture, fashion and storytelling.

“I am deeply moved and so excited!” said Sotirova. “Receiving five nominations across two very different films feels like a beautiful affirmation of all the hard work and heart my teams and I have poured into these stories. The Caribbean Heritage nomination is especially meaningful because Stinky Mango is a love letter to Jamaica, deeply rooted in the landscape, culture, music, people, and sometimes heartbreaking complexity of how we love and relate to one another. I wasn’t born or raised here, but Jamaica has been my personal and creative home for 11 years now, so having the authenticity of the film celebrated in this way is incredibly special and validating.” For Sotirova, who describes herself as Bulmaican for her “Bulgarian roots and Jamaican wings,” the nominations come after more than 15 years of telling stories across cultures, genres and forms.

Set in Jamaica’s mystical Blue Mountains, Stinky Mango is a tender, poetic exploration of love, loss, masculinity, and emotional repression. The 18-minute film follows Adonai, a gifted young musician who leaves his family for a promising career in New York, only to face devastating loss and emotions he can’t process. At its core is a deceptively simple question: if “big men nuh cry,” then how are they supposed to heal?

The film stars award-winning Jamaican actor, dub poet and performer Sheldon Shepherd, known for Storm Saulter’s Better Mus’ Come, Idris Elba’s Yardie, Bob Marley: OneLovee and, most recently, Saulter’s TV series Possession. His portrayal of Adonai earned him the Best Actor nomination. Also starring Danielle McNish, Menackem Wilmot and Andre France, with cinematography by Gabrielle Blackwood, Stinky Mango previously won Best Cast at the 2025 Diversity in Cannes Short Film Showcase and the Innovative Storytelling Award at Jamaica’s Films That Move Festival. Produced by Sotirova, Joan Webley, Tashara-Lee Johnson and Shepherd, the film is also at the heart of the Mango Magic Movement, challenging cultural taboos around emotional wellbeing, particularly among men and boys.

FROM CANNES TO THE CARIBBEAN FILM AWARDS

Sotirova remains an active voice in global conversations about the development and visibility of Caribbean cinema. Elected Vice President of Women in Film and Television Jamaica (WIFTJA) this year, she also represented Jamaica on a panel discussing the present and future of Caribbean cinema at the inaugural Caribbean Day at the African Pavilion of the Cannes Marché du Film in 2025.

At the Caribbean Film Awards, alongside filmmaker Q&As, Sotirova will join Donisha Prendergast and Alexa King for the breakfast networking panel “Beyond the Storm: Film, Preparedness and Hurricane Recovery,” which connects directly with her Best Documentary nominee, Sisters and the Storm. Produced as part of the JAFTA/UNICEF initiative Behind Her Lens: Women and Children in the Wake of Hurricane Melissa, the film follows a group of adolescent girls as they navigate displacement and rebuild their sense of home, self, and belonging after a landslide during Hurricane Melissa destroys their home. While Stinky Mango and Sisters and the Storm are very different works- one fiction, the other documentary- both grapple with loss, resilience, and finding a way forward.

“Caribbean cinema is not just about individual films succeeding,” said Sotirova. “It’s about building an ecosystem where we can tell our stories authentically, finance them, collaborate across our islands, and reach audiences at home and abroad. The Caribbean Film Awards represent a promising new platform for strengthening our film industry and creating more visibility for Caribbean cinema on the global stage.”

Following the Caribbean Film Awards, Stinky Mango heads to the 12°N61°W Film Festival in Grenada, where it continues its festival run across the region and the world.

ABOUT INA SOTIROVA

Ina Sotirova is an award-winning Bulmaican (Bulgarian-Jamaican) filmmaker with more than 15 years of media experience. Her films include Stinky Mango, Agwe, Children of the Incursion and freedom2dance. An alumna of Talents Guadalajara, Film Lab Jamaica, JAFTA Propella, Jihlava Academy Creative Lab, and Columbia University, she teaches at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts. She serves as Vice President of Women in Film & Television Jamaica.