JAMPRO to Establish Film Fund

The Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) has announced plans to establish a film fund to assist with the financing of the country’s creative industry.

“It is critical that we develop financing for practitioners in the film and creative industries because financing is one of the limiting factors in developing those industries. This is why we are going to be actively promoting the development of a film fund this year,” said President of JAMPRO, Diane Edwards.

She was addressing a JIS Think Tank yesterday (January 13) at the agency’s head office in Kingston.

Ms. Edwards hailed the inaugural film festival held in July last year as a success, noting that the event was “critical in building the capacity of our local industry.”

“What was exciting … was the capacity building where we brought international Hollywood stars with strong experiences in the industry to impart their knowledge to local film people,” she noted.

The second staging of the event will take place in October this year.

Ms. Edwards told JIS News that coming out of the film festival two local television series are in development.

“One is a soap opera and the other is a detective series. These will take about a year to develop (including) treatment, writing scripts and financing.” she informed.

Meanwhile, she announced that Renee Robinson has been appointed the new Film Commissioner and Manager of Creative Industries.

She will take up her post on February 1.

Ms. Robinson, who is currently based in Canada, is a media strategist with years of experience in project management, programming design, planning in film, television and the arts. She also has a history in organising film festivals.

Ms. Robinson replaces Carole Beckford, who served from June 2014 to 2015.