President Bharrat Jagdeo this week made good on his commitment to create an endowment which would support a video film making industry in Guyana, according to a release today from the University of Guyana’s Centre for Communication Studies.
The endowment of 10 million Guyana dollars will be administered through the Ministry of Culture.
The release said that Dr Paloma Mohamed, Director of the Centre for Communication Studies of the University of Guyana has been asked to oversee the project. A plan has been reviewed and accepted by the President and Minister of Culture.
The project, according to the release, is the brainchild of Barbadian-born Denis Ward and Brichmore Simon of Kross Kolor Records.
According to the release, of the $10M awarded this year, $2M will be utilized for training through the Centre for Communication Studies at the University of Guyana. Three key components of training will be script development for fictional films, camera and direction of fictional films as well as Sound Production for films.
The other $8M will be used to fund 5 short films made on video. These are projected to be completed by April 2011, the release added.
The five films were chosen by a technical group which reviewed 10 entries submitted in answer to a call for concepts by Kross Kolor Records in January 2010.
This first grant will support 1 film from Berbice, 1 from Essequibo, 1 from Linden and 2 from Georgetown.
