And also as a part of the Film Festival, a Belizean American named Cristobal Krusen is discussing a show called Life or Death. He submitted it to the Caribbean Tales Incubator in Toronto and out of several submissions, Life or Death was one of the four shows that won a production grant. The even better news is that the show is going to be produced right here in Belize and Belizeans have the opportunity to be a part of this major production. Krusen is an experienced filmmaker and writer with over 30 years in the industry under his belt. He explained more about the exciting new project.
Cristobal Krusen, Writer - Life or Death
"I am so excited at the prospect of making this TV series here in Belize. Belize has been my second home, so I'm not a newbie, I'm very familiar with the country, the culture, the people and the basic gist of this series is that it's a political thriller, intrigue kind of tale. It is fictional. The intent is not to portray Belize through the series, but to portray a fictional country by the name of Coast Iguana. That's just the name of the country and how the son of a prominent political family returns to his home after having spent a long time in prison in the United States. He was caught for drug smuggling as a young man and there are no parallels to real people, just to be clear. I see people smiling, so I just want to be clear about that. But he is a man who becomes a heroic figure. In a sense he has a checkered past, but he also has a sincere desire to make the world a better place and so we create this fictional world from start to finish, from bottom to top."
"Primarily we wanted to be a Belizean production. We want to build up the industry here and we want to give first opportunity to Belizeans actors and I would even say people who have had a dream of acting, but never had the opportunity of discovering new talent here in the country. We really want to build up the local scene - the film making scene TV production scene here in Belize."
Suzette Zayden, Festival Director
"The company giving the prizes is FLOW which is the cable company that shows in most of the Caribbean. So pretty much it would be primarily seen throughout the Caribbean. Unfortunately FLOW does not show in Belize, but that did not stop them from awarding a Belizean project. So we are happy about that. In fact there is a page that you can go like the top 4 finalists and it has the most votes right now to get additional funding of about 2500 more. We believe that it resonated really well with the owner of FLOW, whose is the person who awarded his company. We are looking at $40,000US to each of the winners and there are about 3-4 winners this year."
If you are interested in auditioning for the show an audition will be held on Sunday at 10 am at the Bliss as part of the film festival. The show has a facebook page called "Life or Death Pilot". You can visit the page to see the different roles and learn more about Belize's newest television venture.
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