Bartlett bats for Jollywood
Published:Wednesday | March 2, 2022 | 12:06 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
TOURISM MINISTER Edmund Bartlett believes that the island could tap the local film industry to become ‘Jollywood’, or the Jamaican Hollywood, in order to market its culture on the small and big screen.
Bartlett made the declaration on Sunday following the official premiere of the new short film, Link Up, which was produced by Gleaner photographer and videographer, Ashley Anguin, in her directorial debut.
The film, which was shot over a four-month period on almost no budget, was screened at The University of the West Indies’ Western Jamaica campus in Montego Bay.
“I have seen ideas that have been converted into a creative output, which now has the potential to tell the story about Jamaica, our lifestyle, those things that are important to our young people, and those things that are important to building our own character. But we are also saying to the world that this little rock has the potential to be the next Jollywood, not Bollywood and not Hollywood, but Jollywood,” said Bartlett.
“Jollywood is what Jamaica does, because we are happy people. We are among the happiest people on Earth and even in the reviews that have been done, we were in the top 10 countries of the world for happiness,” Bartlett added, referencing Jamaica’s third-place ranking in the 2009 World Happiness Report.
The term Jollywood is derived from Hollywood, home to the United States’ film industry, with several major studios to include Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Disney, and Universal Pictures. Bollywood, meanwhile, is the nickname for India’s film industry in Mumbai, formerly Bombay.
Citing an Innovation Incubator, Bartlett noted that his ministry will be putting $31 million in this year’s budget into the development of film ideas.
That funding, he said, would target the “mining and management of ideas, owning of ideas, and conversion into practical and material things of value”.
“It is these ideas that are going to change the world, that are going to create the new and innovative ways to make us respond to the challenges that we face. It is these ideas that are going to have to change that mindset which says ‘I must conquer and control’, into the idea that we can live together in peace and in harmony,” Bartlett added.
Last May, Bartlett announced the establishment of a tourism incubator to nurture new and start-up enterprises within the tourism sector.
At that time, he said that by 2023, the ministry wanted to develop an arena to facilitate new ideas on how to make Jamaica’s tourism sector stand out from its competition.