Sheldon Casimir and Norris Francois (Jr) are the winners of the 2018 Dominica Film Challenge.
Their short film was entitled, “Dominica, A Different Adventure.”
The announcement was made by CEO and Director of Tourism, Colin Piper at a press conference held at the Prevost Cinemall on Wednesday.
Casimir said he was elated that the duo has won the prize.
“We are elated that we won and were confident that we would have won because of the type of work that we do,” he told Dominica News Online (DNO) during an interview.
According to him, the team is trying to position themselves as the premier audiovisual company on the island and are also aiming to compete with other providers within the region and internationally.
“Although there were other participants locally, we really weren’t looking at competing against them but trying to compete with ourselves and push ourselves above that level that we feel that we were at to try to produce something that we thought that we never did before,” he stated.
Craig Harris and Ericson Joseph won the second prize with their film entitled, “Dominica- From Past to Promise.”
Derek Galon and Margaret Gajek with their film “Hiking an Island Reborn” took home the social media prize.
The other participants were Armani Augustine and Garvin Leblanc with the film, “Nature Island Rejuvenation”, Marcia Honeychurch and Arnaud Chabert with “You and Me” and Tridel Edwin and Elias Dupuis with “Waitikubuli a Love Letter.”
Piper revealed that judging ballots were sent to nine (9) individual businesses that they had identified from the onset to do the judging.
He explained that some have been involved in previous film and working with Discover Dominica Authority (DDA) locally.
“None of the DDA staff locally had a ballot and could participate in the judging,” he explained. “We utilized some of our source market reps abroad who knows what we are looking for in terms of content to promote and market the destination…”
Piper said this was a wonderful experience for Discover Dominica.
“We cherish the content that you have provided to us and with that it is our intention to go far and wide and to indicate to people that Dominica is certainly open for business,” he stated.
Meantime, Minister for Tourism and Culture Robert Tonge said “what was presented clearly shows that the vision [we] had has worked.”
He commended the participants for a job well done.
“No one here is a loser because everything that you produced will be used in the best benefit of the country,” he said.
DDA need to put money to backup their mouths. Dominicans that know the country best cannot even buy a decent camera to record their journeys without gwahyay but still want people to make an ad for the country for next to nothing.
Dem man need to buy some combs with the prize money
Hehehe. See who is making the comment. Yeah. an investment in a comb is worthy.
Is this the best you can say.
It always take an ….like you to come with something negative. Its bad enough the country has so much bad vibes going on and here you come with something negative. Some Rasta man don’t use comb and apart from that do you have what it takes to have competed? Am sure the answer is no so …. down and shut up. Jack…
I think I do have what it takes, actually. Check the name. I’m just kidding.
Knew you had the talent to do the best job.
Nixon must be beaming.
Great job all, congrats to the winners