Kingston, Jamaica – November, 2008

Engouraged by the enthusiasm and interest with which the first Reggae Film Festival was received earlier this year, the Jamaica Film Academy invites entries for the second Reggae Film Festival to be held in Reggae Month 2009.  

The Reggae Film Festival 2009 will follow the format of the first, screening feature and documentary films that use Jamaica’s reggae music and aspects of Jamaican culture as a central theme or soundtrack. Premieres of several documentaries and at least two feature films will be part of the 5-day event, which will also include a Film Seminar, Music Video Competition and a Retrospective of some of the feature films made in Jamaica over the past 20 years.

The 2nd Reggae Film Festival will add new features, including daytime screenings and the introduction of online downloads of selected films. Films in the Music Video Awards competition will be screened on television, with viewers invited to phone or text their award selections. The Jamaica Film Academy Pioneer Members will form an Awards Committee to judge the films and present awards in several categories. Entry Forms for the Reggae Film Festival 2009 can be downloaded from the Festival Website: http://www.jamaicafilmacademy.org.  

The first Reggae Film Festival held in February 2008 featured 22 entries from local and international film makers. The well-attended event opened at Emancipation Park on February 22 and moved to the Courtleigh Auditorium for two nights of screenings. Among the films screened were Jamaican premieres of feature films “Roots Time” (Argentinia) and “Almost Heaven” (Germany), documentaries “Stepping Razor Red X: Peter Tosh” (Jamaica) and “The Legend: Rico Rodriques (Spain), “Dub Echoes” (Brazil) as well as retrospectives of Jamaican films “Countryman” and “Kla$h”. Film festival guests included Hollywood producer Arthur Gorson, Generoso Fierro of Boston, USA, ‘Jungle George’ Tait of Canada and Jep Jorba of Spain, while the festival honoured Jamaican film makers Carl Bradshaw, Wayne and Dickie Jobson. 

In an announcement at the end of the Reggae Film Festival 2008, Minister of Information & Culture Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange said that the impact and importance of the event signalled it was time for a new focus on Jamaican film making. She therefore inducted six film pioneers into a newly created Jamaica Film Academy to heighten awareness and drive development of the industry. The Reggae Film Festival will help raise funds for Jamaica Film Academy projects and activities.

The Reggae Film Festival 2008 will once again be co-ordinated by Barbara Blake Hannah, Special Consultant to the Minister of Information & Culture, with film archivist Peter Gittins of Reggae Films UK and a Jamaica Film Academy management committee drawn from the Ministry’s film and cultural divisions CPTC, JIS, PBCJ, and the JCDC, as well as inputs from the Ministry of Tourism and Jamaica Trade & Invest. The event will be one of several activities taking place in February 2009, which last year was proclaimed Reggae Month in perpetuity by the Governor General and the Prime Minister of Jamaica.