NEW JAMAICAN FILMS FOR LONDON JAMAICA 50
Visitors to the Festival Jamaica 2012 event at the Stratford, London Olympic 
Village in July will be exposed for the first time to a wealth of new Jamaican feature, documentary and animated films never before seen in England, as Jamaica’s Reggae Film Festival brings a collection of the Festival’s best films to celebrate Jamaica’s 50th anniversary of Independence.
The Reggae Film Festival will showcase more than 40 new films at the FESTIVAL JAMAICA 2012 venue next door the Olympic Stadium, to provide a window on Jamaica’s contemporary life and culture. The London programme specially showcases the CINE JAMAICA collection of short films by the many bright young Jamaican film makers, whose productions made with low budgets and high ambitions are winning international film awards.
From full-length features, half-hour shorts, 5-minute entries in the popular Make A Film In 24 Hours competition, music videos and 3-D animation, the CINE JAMAICA collection carries to London the hopes and dreams of young film makers from the home of THE HARDER THEY COME for whom the Reggae Film Festival provides a chance for them to take their films ‘to the world’.
CINE JAMAICA films include the triple-award-winnng short RED, AMBER, GREEN by Christopher Byfield, the popular dancehall-themed animated series DUTTY BWOY by Reinardo ‘Mental’ Chung, and the feature film MISTAKE by Karret Barclay, as well as short films by directors Jones Jr., Adjani Samuels, Wayne Benjamin, Mezan Ayoka, Darren Scott, Maurice McCallum, Jay Will and Amaziyah The Great.
HIGHLIGHT PREMIERE Among the special highlights of the Reggae Film 
Festival programme is the UK premiere of BOB MARLEY: THE MAKING OF A LEGEND, the documentary collaboration by NAACP Image Award-winning actress Esther Anderson and Gian Godoy of scenes and interviews with a pre-locks, pre-fame Marley while she had a two-year relationship with the reggae legend in the early 70s. The film has been screened at more than 35 festivals in the USA, Cannes, Brazil, Barbados and at the RFF in 2011, where it won the UNESCO Honour Award.
In a review in Echoes Magazine noted reggae journalist John Masouri, wrote: “Ms. Anderson’s film doesn’t consist of the usual parade of archive footage and talking heads but revolves around priceless, early footage of the Wailers she shot in Jamaica during 1973, when Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston were still in the group and Marley had just delivered the groundbreaking Catch A Fire album to Island Records. To watch all three Wailers … at 56 Hope Road is to witness reggae history at a crucial point in its development. It’s a revelation in truth – one of immense interest to Marley fans and anyone else sharing a love of Jamaican music and the cultural heritage from which it springs. ”
The Reggae Film Festival programme also includes international feature films set in Jamaica with Jamaican stories and music, documentaries about reggae including a rare interview with Lee Scratch Perry, the latest music videos, and a special programme of films about Jamaica’s Rastafari religion and culture. The films will be screened in the Festival Jamaica 2012 Cinema over 7 days beginning July 28.
Come and see the new Jamaican cinema movement!
