Prime Minister’s Office Appoints New Film Commissioner

Carlo Habet

There is a new Belize Film Commissioner. He is Carlo Habet, a co-founder of Ignite Limited, an advertising agency and video production company in Belize. Habet was appointed to the post by Prime Minister John Briceño. His primary responsibility as the film commissioner is to sell Belize as a destination for international filmmakers to realize their projects. And, according to Habet, he is already in talks with two big budget films, one with arguably the biggest budget to ever come to Belize. We spoke with Habet today and asked him about his vision and how he separates his post as film commissioner from his responsibilities as the co-founder of a production company. Here is what he shared.

Carlo Habet, Belize Film Commissioner

“From what I gathered they wanted a change. I think there is not a lot of Belizeans with the kind of film experience that you might want for this position. To be honest, I was honored. It was an honor and a privilege to represent your country in this capacity. I took it very seriously. The fact that it was even offered to me, it was an honor. I wanted to do my government proud. It is an appointment out of the PM’s office. I am appointed by the PM and the way I am working, I am still trying to get resources out of the PM’s office for certain things, like grants we have coming up next year to stimulate the local industry. But, we have a great relationship with NICH, which is while I am here. I am a board member of NICH as well. And so, the minister of education also has grand ideas of how film can fit into ICA, the Institute of Creative Arts. So, the office will now be housed right aside ICA. I have had a lot of stake holders meeting thus far. Everyone has been very energized from the kind of energy, but also it I think that stakeholders want to be at the table too and I think everyone wants to be involved. That the interesting thing about it. So, personally what I always say is that I make my own films; we do a lot of commercial work, documentaries, a lot of NGO stuff. We are looking to do more our grand foray into films. We have a feature coming up. But, I don’t believe that conflicts because my mandate is to bring films to Belize. I think once they get here, my job is to make sure that they are routed to qualified fixers in Belize who could help them to produce their films. It might be short film contents; it could be all kinds of stuff.”