Despite ongoing challenges, coupled with “lack of support from government and limited funding”, conceptualiser of the Reggae Film Festival, Barbara Makeda Blake Hannah, promises that this year’s staging will be the best ever.

The upbeat promoter of the event also announced that for the first time the categories of entries have been expanded to include films of non-reggae orientations in order to facilitate the expansion of the local film industry.

“With less then a shoe-string budget, we’ve been creating an exciting calendar of events that will prove to be a marked improvement on the last staging. Through the Father’s blessings corporate citizens who believe in the local film industry and the talents of our fellow Jamaicans at home and aboard, have contributed in whatever way they could in kind and effort,” Blake-Hannah said at the recent launch at the Hilton Hotel which is the venue for the 2010 Reggae Film Festival which runs from February 25 – 27.

The three-day event will showcase feature films, short films, documentaries, make-a-film-in 24-hours competition and a seminar on the local film industry.

“We’ll be looking at the Jamaica film industry and what are some of the challenges that it faces. Why is it not more dynamic, like the great potential that exist in the music,” explained co-ordinator of the seminar University lecturer Dr Michael Barnett.

The Reggae Film Festival with entries from Japan, Hawaii, Switzerland, UK and Germany, will inaugurate awards in categories of Best Jamaican Film, Best Documentary, Best Short Film, Best Music Video, and Best Actor/Actress.