Film Workshop for Belize’s Creative Scene Coming This June!

Calling all filmmakers, students, and creatives! The Belize Film Commission is launching an exciting new opportunity, the Belize Film Xchange Workshop Series, happening June twenty-third to twenty-seventh at the ITVET Campus in Belize City. This five-day, hands-on workshop is packed with expert-led sessions covering everything from screenwriting and directing to cinematography, sound, editing, and music. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to sharpen your skills, this is your chance to learn from the best. And speaking of the best, the lineup includes both local and international.

 

Carlo Habet, Film Commissioner

“So the five-day film workshop series that we’re putting on, entitled the Belize Film Exchange, is something that has been a brainchild, in development for like a year now and it’s a component that we think is really important because we notice that processing permits and these kinds of things, we have a lot of films coming in and more films coming in, bigger films coming in. But what do they need? They need people who they can hire and this is something that we want to provide, it’s that skilled labor so that we can have our Belizeans, you know, they can actually do these things themselves. But it’s like a chicken and egg situation, so we didn’t have enough people. Now, we want to make sure that there are people out there that are of a specific type of standard and actually have something to show for it. So what’s actually interesting is that ITVET is actually certifying this course, so when people are done with this, they could say, “Hey, we have a certificate in directing or screenwriting, or production, grip and electrical.” So I think that’s kind of the value we’re trying to bring to people and I really must tip my hat to NICH and the Ministry of Education for providing this and really subsidizing it because it’s a big program and the price that it’s out there for is actually super reasonable. I hope that it’s something that people will take advantage of, one. And two, that it’s a start of something that we want to do quarterly, going forward.”

 

Isani Cayetano

“Who all are you looking to see enroll in this particular seminar?”

 

Carlo Habet

“So, for the exchange, we thought, the industry is still very young and we want to actually target two different groups. One is actually working professionals who already are in the industry, but also students who are already taking some kind of art program and they kind of want to do something film-related and this might be the next step for them that they can take to say well maybe now this is how I can get into working professionally in the film industry, audiovisual industry.”

 

Sessions run daily from 8 AM to 5 PM, so get ready to dive deep into the world of filmmaking. The workshop is ITVET-certified and backed by the National Institute of Culture and History, the Ministry of Education, Science & Technology, and the Belize Film Commission.