If you missed it last night, I was interviewed by Ed Umoja on "Speaking to Harmony" a radio blog show on "Sister's in Harmpony radio". If you want to hear it here is the link below.
Interview
We spoke about my short film "Heart Shaped Box" the response it got at the PITON International Film Festival (PIFF), Chicago Caribbean Film Festival and the Houston Caribbean Film Festival. Beyond that we spoke about the film industry in Jamaica and the Caribbean, how we can address some of the challenges.
It was a good interview covering a lot of ground including film festivals across the Caribbean, Animation, making linkages overseas, collaborating more across the Caribbean and of course bigging up a few local filmmakers I think we all need to look out for.
Ed Umoja is the founder of PIFF in St. Lucia, an international film festival he has been successfully running for 3 years and it is growing in terms of attracting tourists during the slow season helping to fill hotels and flights to the island not to mention the spill over economic benefit to restaurants and local craft and transport sectors. Ed is also the founder of Cariwood, a movement that is encouraging the effective networking of different film communities in the Caribbean, Africa and the diaspora to help strengthen and unify the industry. It is his strong belief that our combined efforts will help put us on the map faster. Right now each island is struggling to make even one film a year. Ideally we should be making 10 but that is a challenge. If the islands could easily work with each other, maybe the combined resources could help us meet that goal. Then a significant dent could be made. 10 is probably not very achievable in the nearest future especially for more than maybe 3 islands at this time, but it's definitely something we should aim for and hopefully initiatives like the highly successful JAFTA Propella program and PIFF's initiatives regionally and internationally can help boost that movement.
Until then I encourage filmmakers to look out for local festivals next year like Lignum Vitae Film Festival, GATFFEST Film Festival, Reggae Film Festival, Alliance Francaise French Animation Festival and hopefully the Jamaica Film Festival as places to show case their work. Regionally look out for what Cuba is doing, look out for PIFF, the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (TTFF) and the Bahamas International Film Festival (BIFF). These festivals are not to be snoozed on.
Check out the Interview and tell me what you think below. Did you enjoy it? What would you love to hear more about?
