Caribbean film festival to open Wednesday night

On Wednesday night, the first travelling Caribbean Film Showcase will open in Belize City at the Bliss Centre for the Performing Arts. The event is being sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the Cuban Institute of Art and Cinematographic Industry in collaboration with CARICOM. For the next eight days, more than thirty hours of film from fourteen filmmakers from across the region will be shown on screen. According to local promoter Suzette Zayden the idea is to develop Belize’s budding film industry.

Suzette Zayden, Promoter, Caribbean Film Showcase
“Belize doesn’t have a large film industry, we are actually just starting and fiction films, there are very few of those. They are starting to come out of the woodwork, some short films are being made, some more people are getting interested in doing feature films, but what this does is include Belize in that effort. There are many other Caribbean countries who haven’t seen any images from Belize. We are looking at that aspect, the fact that we have a film from Belize in the showcase that’s going around to the rest of the Caribbean, and we’re also looking at the fact that Belize is included in this entire showcase, which means it is a country that has some name in film, which they might not know what it is. But we’re there, we’re part of the committee and so they are looking to us as well to guide the entire Caribbean along with the industry.”

Official opening ceremonies of the film festival is set for seven-thirty tomorrow night. One of the first films that will debut in Belize is a documentary on the Carnival group the Blue Devils.