The release last week of the new film The Ole Higue by Ssignal Productions refocused the camera on Guyana’s attempts to build a film industry and on recent attention paid to the recognition and development of cultural industries. Both are developing enterprises, although they may claim a long history. There are many similarities where these are concerned across the Caribbean, although the state of development and achievement are quite uneven among Caricom countries. “Are we there yet?” was the question asked in the Carifesta Symposium in Guyana in 2008 titled ‘Defining and Refining Our Cultural Industries’. A follow-up seminar in the Inter-Guianas Cultural Festival (IGCF) in Georgetown in 2012 suggested that we were not.
There was even a further line of enquiry at the Sym-posia of Carifesta XI in Suriname in 2013. But these were heavily focused on youth in popular music and the discussion on cultural industries in a large general context was very small, not well publicised and not well attended. That itself might have been a reflection of where we were.
Where film is concerned, there have been events and growing attention. Carifesta XII in Haiti focused on film and Guyana was well represented by both persons and exhibits, while the IGCF held variously in Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana paid noted
