Montego Bay, St James - Renowned Jamaican folk singer extraordinaire Harry Belafonte left Jamaica Saturday after vacationing with his family at the Half Moon Hotel in this tourist resort city.

BELAFONTE. I will be back in Jamaica in the latter part of this year to shoot footage on my childhood days

In an interview with the Observer minutes before he departed the island, Belafonte said he was in the process of producing a film on his life and was in Jamaica finalising arrangements to shoot some footage here later this year.

"We started filming a year ago," said Belafonte.
The world-renowned crooner, who made famous such songs as the Banana Boat Song, Matilda and Island In The Sun, was born in the US of Jamaican parents. He and his family returned to Jamaica when he was a year old. He spent his early years in Jamaica before returning to the US when he was 12 years old.

Belafonte, 79, said he was producing the documentary on his life and had received numerous offers of interest from companies such as the BBC and Time Warner/HBO for distribution rights.
"I will be back in Jamaica in the latter part of this year to shoot footage on my childhood days," he noted., explaining that he would be visiting his childhood home in Brown's Town, St Ann and many of the other places that hold significance for him.

"I will just be going to where I grew up; some of the houses I grew up in, Wolmer's school, the Half-Way-Tree school and the Morris Knibb school," he explained.
He said he would not be doing any casting for persons to appear in the film.

Belafonte, who lives in New York, spent a week here with his wife and son and his son's family.
He said he had not yet decided on a name for the documentary, which will be a 12-hour mini-series.

Known for popularising many Jamaican folk songs internationally, he lauded the inroads that reggae has made internationally and spoke respectfully of reggae icons Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff.

"I came before them," he said, "but I love reggae."
Marley, he said, had made a great contribution to the world not just by popularising reggae music but with his poetry.

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