Nigel Miguel is Belize’s new Film Commissioner. If you’ve
seen the movie “The Air Up There”, you’ll definitely know
him because he co-starred in that film. He also had a bit role in the prescient
gang film “Colors” and played many other roles in major Hollywood
films. But to really know Nigel Miguel, you’d have to have been in Belize
in the 1980’s when he was playing basketball for the UCLA Bruins, the
winningest team in Men’s division 1 basketball history. At that time,
this son of Belizean parents who migrated to the States, was the first Belizean
to play in Division 1, and Belize – then still in its media infancy -
was justly proud. After that he moved unto Hollywood where he parlayed his basketball
connections into Hollywood fame. And now he’s back in Belize and was recently
named Belize’s new film Commissioner. He picks up where the now deceased
Emory King left off, but as we learned in this NICH prepared piece, he wants
to take film in Belize to another level, forming a genuine film industry. Here’s
more.
Government has appointed a new film commissioner to head the development of
Belize’s film industry after the passing of the late Emory King. Meet
Nigel P. Miguel. Born in Belize in 1963 an athletically blessed 6’5”
Nigel spent more of his formative years in southern California playing basketball
with the likes of Patrick Euwing, Charles Barkley, and Michael Jordan before
an inoperable heel industry sidelined him early on his early basketball career.
Nigel Miguel,
“I’ve always had a passion for filmmaking. After I got injured
I kind of looked around for things I could do and the film stuff kind of fell
in my lap just because I had a following from basketball and people knew who
I was. I was cast in the movie called Colors. I had a small part in that film
but what that allowed me to do I do in that movie is learn the insides of Hollywood
from some big wigs. The director Dennis Hopper is a huge basketball fan and
he took me under his wings, showed me around, I got a chance to really meet
Sean Penn, Robert Duvall, Damon Wayans, Don Cheadle, and develop relationships
with these guys so that movie in that time of my life was very important as
far as it laid the groundwork, the foundation for what I am doing now.”
Miguel’s role is to encourage international producers to bring their
films to Belize and to attract investment from interested parties willing to
set up the infrastructure necessary to grow our industry both of which will
provide jobs for Belizeans.
“Filming can obviously be done anywhere in the world, especially
if they are good at it but what’s going to make Belize such an excellent
spot to do this is the fact that it is English speaking. The film commissioner
is working closely with us. These are two things that are really helpful when
moving an entire production team into another country.”
Nigel Miguel,
“We have a beautiful exterior and we have all these nice locations.
What we’re missing here is the proper infrastructure to bring down the
big productions. And when I say infrastructure, it would be wonderful for us
to have a post production house, post production facilities, proper camera rentals,
sound rentals, electrical. So people can come to this country and not have to
bring their own equipment. When people see that happening that shows that there
is a film industry here and that’s what we’re lacking as far as
to bring those type of big productions into the country.”
“We’ve decided a post production facility, a sound studio,
and all the rest of the associated equipment is worth the investment and we’re
intending on creating a go to destination for post production. This country
is capable of sustaining this and willing from what we’ve understood with
the film commission.”
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