President Bharrat Jagdeo this week made good on his commitment of some months ago to create an endowment which would support a video film making industry in Guyana.
The endowment of $10M will be administered through the Ministry of Culture.
Dr. Paloma Mohamed, Director of the Centre for Communication Studies of the University of Guyana, has been asked to oversee the project. A disbursement and execution plan has been reviewed and accepted by the President and Minister of Culture.
The film project, put forward some months ago, the brainchild of  Barbadian born Denis Ward and Brichmore Simon of Kross Kolor Records, is expected to go a long way in supporting aspiring local film makers in seeing their small projects to completion.
Most importantly, the project seeks to ensure that the proper training in several aspects of fictional film making takes place as a pre-requisite for accessing the small grants. The emphasis, the President had said, has to be on high quality.
Of $10M awarded this year, $2M will be utilized for training through the Centre for Communication Studies at the University of Guyana. Three major aspects 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 five short films made on video. These are projected to be completed by April 2011.
The five films were chosen by a technical group which reviewed 10 entries submitted in response to a call for concepts  by Kross Kolor Records in January 2010.
Apart from technical considerations and funds available, consideration was also given to geographic, ethnic and gender balance in the choices made. 
This first grant will support one film from Berbice, one from Essequibo, one from Linden and two from Georgetown.
Once the funds have been released, the filmmakers whose work has been identified for funding will be notified in writing with regard to the next step. (GINA)