Pushing Region's Filmmakers

Frances-Anne Solomon (left), chief executive officer of CaribbeanTales, listening while company principal Lisa Wickham shares some of the company’s future plans. (Picture by Cherie Pitt.)

From The Nation, Barbados

Published on 5/20/2010.

BARBADOS IS SET to become the home of the first film distribution company in the English-speaking Caribbean. Last Wednesday, CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution Inc. was launched to present Caribbean film-makers to the international community.

CaribbeanTales was established to ensure that film-makers in the Caribbean could effectively have their work marketed and distributed.

Independent film producers have no centralised channel through which to market content, and content buyers have no centralised entity from which to acquire content.

Frances-Anne Solomon, chief executive officer of CaribbeanTales, said: "There is an explosion of products coming out of the region and there is a need for a focused distribution strategy to ensure that this content gets the best deals on the international market."

Solomon emphasised the danger in not having avenues available for products indigenous to the Caribbean, where film review personnel might decide the work has no audience without taking time to invest in the product or understand the target market.

CaribbeanTales' chairman Dr Keith Nurse, who is also director of the Shridath Ramphal Centre at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies, said the biggest challenge was that throughout the Caribbean there was the generation of content but no outlets for getting this content into the markets.

Nurse said the creation of a company that could distribute Caribbean films was important, since film-makers currently relied on people outside of the region to distribute their work. This, he said, caused the money to stay outside of the region as the most money could be made through distribution and marketing. (LK)

CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution is founded by accomplished international filmmaker Frances-Anne Solomon, whose most recent award-winning feature film A Winter Tale, has won critical acclaim. Other principals include Dr Keith Nurse, Director of UWI's Shridath Ramphal Center at Cave Hill, well-known Trinidad-based Publicist, Producer, and Media Personality Lisa Wickham, and Jamaican filmmaker Mary Wells ("Kingston Paradise").


CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution is part of the Barbados Business Enterprise Corp.family which provides Shepherding and Seed & Venture Capital services.

Caribbean Film Distribution Company to be launched in Barbados

This month Barbados will become home to CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution: the first ever of its kind film distribution company in the English-speaking Caribbean aimed at creating moneymaking opportunities for producers of Caribbean content.

The company will be launched at a Press Conference in Bridgetown on May 19th 2010.

One of the many tangible outcomes of the recently concluded and highly acclaimed Best of CaribbeanTales Film Festival held in Barbados earlier this year, CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution is being established to represent Caribbean Filmmakers to the international community.

It will also position Barbados as a "centre of excellence" for film in the region.

CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution intends to acquire a broad-based catalogue of Caribbean-themed films from the Region and its Diaspora, and to market these products through its Festivals and other international markets such as Cannes and Mipcom as well as at trade fairs, missions and conferences.

According to CEO and renowned Filmmaker Frances-Anne Solomon, “there is an explosion of product coming out of the region and there is a need for a focused distribution strategy to ensure that this content gets the best deals on the international market.”

“Other companies exist around the world, but Caribbean cinema has its own aesthetic, which unfortunately is marginal to such entities. We wanted to create something that will take care of our own.” Says Solomon.

Solomon believes that the Caribbean is a reservoir of stories that will appeal to a wide cross-section of people because of the diversity that exists in the Region.

“In fact our literature is a testament to the wealth of material there is to mine.” She says.


CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution is in the process of acquiring content from filmmakers and will showcase its inaugural Catalogue at the annual Caribbean Studies Association Conference that this year will be held in Barbados May 24 – 28, 2010.

CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution is founded by Solomon, herself an accomplished international filmmaker. Other principals include Dr Keith Nurse, Director of UWI's Shridath Ramphal Center at Cave Hill, well-known Trinidadian Producer, Director and Media Personality Lisa Wickham,  and Jamaican filmmaker Mary Wells ("Kingston Paradise").


CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution Inc is a proud partner of the Barbados Business Enterprise Corp. a company formed by Dr Basil  Springer, that  provides Shepherding and Seed & Venture Capital services to businesses.