7 News Belize

Film Festival’s Winners
posted (July 15, 2013)
The 8th Annual Belize International Film Festival closed today with a press conference by the Institute of Creative Arts to announce the winners.

There weren't many Belizeans honored this year, and the majority of the awards went to international filmmakers.

7News attended, and was spoke to 2 of the 3 of the winners from Belize who were recognized for producing content respected by the international community.

Here's how they explained their work, as well as the Festival's explanation why Belizeans weren't the forefront of this Festival.

Daniel Ortiz
"Was it difficult in trying to produce a film with budgeting and all that stuff?"

Michael Flores - Most Notable Belizean Film
"The thing of money, you have to sort of have a passion for what you do so that you save every little penny that you have to invest it in your work, like I am a person, I don't necessarily drink and go to parties and stuff like that and whatever money I have that would say leisure, I would take that to shoot a scene, to do a few leg work, some research. I pay people to do different things that have to be done in order to make a film complete but it's a 'knock and go' kind of a thing because here in Belize we don't necessarily have that money but we do have time, we are able to sacrifice and we have good people who support us."





Carlo Habet - Director, Ex-Boyfriend Music Video
"At the end of the day we wanted to do something that brought the song to life and gave people an idea of what it is she was singing about and apparently we succeeded. From here on we have another video the shoot and we are going to be working on that fervently between now and next week in posts so we have more stuff for you guys, Belize. Very humbled and flattered that we were picked, and we tied, kudos to Melonie Gillett who is another star in the industry, another great work behind her as well."





Sudz Sutherland - Director, "Home Again"
"Home Again, the film that debut here, opened the festival has won an honorable mention for best features so I am very happy that it won and very happy to be here, very happy to open the festival."







Rigoberto Lopez - Member, Film Juror Panel
"The quality of the Belizean films, were really very general in consistency."









Suzette Zaiden - Director, Belize Int'l Film Festival
"We can't just award our prizes to Belizean films just because they are Belizean films because if we start giving mediocre or low quality, and I'm just talking about technical stuff at this time, awards, we get back lashed because other festivals are watching us. We have began to get a reputation and if I say that we chose this film as a winner some of them will, on that basis, select these films, to be in their festival and then we end up with Belize looking bad. When it reaches them, they'll be like, 'but your festival gave them a prize, what were you thinking.'"

As noted in the interview, Michael Flores was recognized for Most Notable Belizean Film for his move Maroons: Africans on the Move.

The award for the Best music video was a tie between Tanya Carter's "Ex-Boyfriend", directed by Carlo Habet, and Melonie Gillett's "Come Away", directed by Ben Hudson.

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