Five win­ners from The Caribbean Pitch Tank have been cho­sen from a group of re­gion­al ap­pli­cants who par­tic­i­pat­ed in vir­tu­al Film, An­i­ma­tion and Mu­sic Pro­duc­tion train­ing in 2022, where they ben­e­fit­ed from the ex­per­tise of well-renowned film writ­ers, pro­duc­ers and di­rec­tors.

The five win­ners are Mar­tin Mas­si­ah (Top Male Pitch, Guyana); An­drea Den­ni­son (Top Fe­male Pitch, Be­lize); Joshua Har­row (3rd place, St. Lu­cia); Ashad Brooks (4th place, An­guil­la) and Omari Joseph (5th place, Guyana).

The project was con­cep­tu­al­ized by the For­ward Ever Foun­da­tion and fund­ed by Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB), through its Cul­tur­al and Cre­ative In­dus­tries In­no­va­tion Fund (CI­IF) to help youths in the Caribbean be­tween the ages of 13 to 29 by equip­ping them with em­ploy­able skills in the ar­eas of film, mu­sic and an­i­ma­tion, us­ing train­ing and men­tor­ing tech­niques.

First-place win­ner, Mar­tin Mas­si­ah, said he be­came cap­ti­vat­ed by the con­cept of cul­ture, mu­sic and film as tools of em­pow­er­ment, rather than as tra­di­tion­al forms of en­ter­tain­ment, “My pitch was about high­light­ing in­dige­nous cul­ture which pro­motes youth and women. It came from my ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing on a film project in a gold min­ing com­mu­ni­ty lo­cat­ed in the rain­forests in Guyana. I want­ed to share the Guyanese and Caribbean sto­ries through film.”

Mean­while, sec­ond-place win­ner, An­drea Den­ni­son, echoed the same sen­ti­ments, “My an­i­mat­ed film is called ‘Bow’ and is set in the fu­ture where the Caribbean Sea is dy­ing due to is­sues such as pol­lu­tion, cli­mate change and harm­ful ac­tiv­i­ties such as over­fish­ing. The sto­ry fol­lows a rare rain­bow sea tur­tle which has a slim chance of hatch­ing and jour­ney­ing to the Be­lize Bar­ri­er Reef.”

Christo­pher Din Chong, Chair­man of the For­ward Ever Foun­da­tion, who is the brain­child be­hind The Caribbean Pitch Tank added, “It was a plea­sure work­ing with all the par­tic­i­pants and a priv­i­lege to ex­pe­ri­ence their many di­verse sto­ries from across the Re­gion. Every par­tic­i­pant should feel a sense of pride. They stepped out of their com­fort zone and ful­ly ex­plored what goes in­to pack­ag­ing their in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty to ob­tain the sup­port they need to bring their project to fruition. Work­ing along­side these young cre­ators has made me tru­ly op­ti­mistic for the fu­ture of the Cre­ative Sec­tor.”