TRAVELLING FILM SHOWCASE OPENS TONIGHT

April 11, 2007

The first Traveling Caribbean Film Showcase opens in Belize tonight. The bliss Center for the Performing Arts will be the venue where documentaries and feature length films by film producers in the region will be showcased. To give us details on tonight’s opening and showcases for the rest of the week, Love News spoke with Chair of the Belize Coordination Committee and Member of the International Organizing Committee, Suzette Zayden

Suzette Zayden:

"The first traveling Caribbean starts tonight, Wednesday April 11 at 7:30 p.m. at the Bliss Center for the Performing Arts in Belize City. It will last for eight days until Tuesday April 17 so that’s eight days of films from the Caribbean countries.There will be 29 films overall.Their films are romance, love, drama but there are also some serious films that deal with women and family issues, that deal with AIDS and some that just are fun. This is not just any 29 films from the Caribbean, this is the top 29. We chose29 films out of 110 submitted films.The international selection committee met in Havana last year November to sit down and choose what they thought would be a good representation of recent films in the Caribbean.This showcase has feature films, documentaries and short films but the majority of it overall are featured and films.Thursday the festival continues beginning at 5:45p.m. We’re giving the time to get out from work and there are two screenings on Thursday, one at 5:45 and the other at 7:30 p.m.On Friday the first one starts at 2 p.m. and again at 5:45 and 8 p.m. for Friday.On Saturday there’s a show at 3 p.m., 5:45 p.m. and 8 p.m. Sunday it starts at 2 p.m., 6 p.m. and 8:15 p.m.Monday it’s 2 p.m. 5:15 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. and closing night ceremonies are at 7:30 p.m. and the screenings are at 8 p.m.All the films should finish by 10:15 10:30 at night."

A submission from Belize will also be featured.

Suzette Zayden:

"There’s on film from Belize actually, I did it, it’s called “Days of the Dead.” It’s part of a larger work that was called some to Belize a cultural diary. This is a look at the traditions of the Maya Mestizo in the Northern part of Belize. It’s only 12 minutes because the selection committee of which nobody could vote for their own films so I did not vote for this film. They decided which film would represent Belize if any but they requested it be cut down to 12 minutes because they were trying to keep the showcase vibrant and it was a little bit didactic for showcase."

“Noh Matta What” did not make it to the showcase; Zayden says that it is because the international body was very specific on its criteria.

Suzette Zayden:

“Belize submitted three films to the showcase, however the rules were specific saying that we were not looking for Soap Operas so that cancelled out “no Matta What” which was submitted and which the judges like very much, they just did not want the story that wouldn’t end. That’s the reason for not showing a Soap Opera in this showcase. We also sent a documentary on the Howler Monkey by Tony Rath, they liked it but they also said for this first showcase we would be concentrating more on people and places as opposed to the wildlife of theses countries, so those are the reasons why they didn’t make it in, although Belize did have a high technical quality to its work.”

Suzette Zayden, Chair of the Belize Coordination Committee and Member of the International Organizing Committee. While the showcase stops in Belize, it started out in Saint Kitts and Nevis in February. It will stop in all twenty-one countries, before the grand finish in Havana, Cuba in May. While in Cuba, the International Organizing Committee will hold a conference to discuss the strategies for the collaboration and integration of cinema and audiovisuals in the Caribbean. This will be held from June eleventh to fourteenth. Meanwhile, show time is tonight in Belize and it is free to the public for its entire duration.

|

|