Jamaican film industry needs more support
Dear Editor,
In January I wrote expressing dismay that high praise was being given to the US$1.5m being spent by the Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz movie that was being filmed here, yet support was not being given to the Jamaican film industry by supporting the film festival I was organising to showcase the works by Jamaican and international film makers supporting our music culture. Now I am equally dismayed to learn from a report in Friday’s Observer that the film does not mention Jamaica and so we have not received the much-promised “publicity” that officialdom claims the island receives from these periodic Hollywood projects.
I once proposed to the government that every film made in Jamaica should pay at least two per cent of earnings to a Jamaican film fund that could be used, among other things, to make Jamaican films, but this proposal was ignored. At present there is no government source for film funding, nor do the government agencies such as JAMPRO, JTB, TPDCo or the Ministry of Culture see any necessity to support local film-making ventures, preferring to spend the national budget to send delegations to film festivals abroad in the hope of persuading yet another Hollywood movie to shoot one or more scenes in Jamaica.
In its three-year existence, the Reggae Film Festival has seen 18 foreign film makers pay their way to Jamaica for the event, having financed their own film productions featuring Jamaican music, culture and history. In addition, this year the Reggae Film Festival showcased the work of 10 new Jamaican film makers. Yet, as mentioned, the government persons claiming to support the Jamaican film industry have made no effort to attend the event or contact these film makers, although some of them are embarking on their second Jamaican film production after the success of their first. The same funds that JAMPRO used to host a gala premiere of that Hollywood movie could have just as easily been spent supporting the Reggae Film Festival. However, as long as those in the industry who get the foreign jobs remain the industry “leaders”, we will just have to watch while they wring their hands and weep at how Jamaica has prostituted itself again cheaply for the benefit of a very few and another lost opportunity.
Barbara Blake Hannah
Jamaica Film Academy/Reggae Film Festival
Kingston 6