Film festival off ib JAMAICA?

BY RICHARD JOHNSON Observer senior reporter johnsonr@jamaicaobserver.com  Tuesday, August 09, 2016  

THE second staging of the Jamaica Film Fesitval, set for September this year, seems to have hit a snag and will not take place this year.

The event — which was first held in July last year — an initiative of the then film commissioner Carole Beckford, was to be repeated this year. However, when new film commissioner Renee Robinson took up that post in February of this year, it was announced that the July staging of the festival was being shifted to align the local festival with the international film festival calendar. It was announced that the event would take place in September following the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in Canada. This move, it was rationalised, would allow for more of the international set to participate following TIFF.

However, the Jamaica Observer understands that the board of JAMPRO (Jamaica Promotions Corporation), an agency of government in which the film commission is situated, changed following the February 25 General Election, and the new board has not signed off on the staging of the festival. The new board is expected to meet next week, and the film festival is slated as an agenda item.

Film commissioner Robinson declined to comment on the matter at this time, stating that she would be only at liberty to speak following the board meeting. Jampro and its film office hinted at the shift in its focus in a release issued at the end of June, noting that it has partnered with the Jamaica Film and Television Association (JAFTA) to support the production of five Jamaican short films to be shown at the September 2016 Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (TTFF).

This was being done through the PROPELLA! Initiative which aims to support the talent of Jamaican filmmakers, and garner international exposure for Jamaican culture through film.

Under PROPELLA!, five projects — Origins by Kurt Wright and Noelle Kerr; Adrian Lopez’s Shock Value; Shoot the Girl, the project by Tony Hendricks and Natalie Thompson; Sugar — a collaboration by Laurie Parker, Sharon Leach and Michelle Serieux, and The Silent Ones by Gregory Lopez and Janet Morrison — were chosen through a blind selection process by JAFTA and JAMPRO. These projects will receive support which includes training in pitching projects, festival strategy, script consultation, directing for short films and deal-making, as well as funding to carry the projects to the North American and Caribbean markets.