A CALL has been issued for well-written Jamaican stories

to be made into films

and books.

It has come from players in the creative industries — film, literature, television, dance, and theatre — who gathered at a special public discussion entitled: Our stories: Are we ignoring opportunities in film, theatre, dance, literature, music…?. It was held Monday at the Bookophilia store in

St Andrew.

Organised by Visual and Performing Arts Jamaica (VPAJ), the British Council and Book Industry Association of Jamaica, it sought to unlock the reason for the dearth of Jamaican stories in local media.

According to film producer Justine Henzell, there is a lack of good scripts to take

that great Jamaican story

to the world.

“Far too often I am faced with a great idea, pitch and treatment, but when it comes to the script, we fall flat,” Henzell said. She added that Jamaicans should stop discounting stories as being too local, stupid and only for old people.

Henzell pointed out that these same stories are

being told by worldwide to great acclaim.

“We have to make our films authentically Jamaican by injecting our culture and folklore, and thereby different from the rest of the world,” she said.

This was echoed by film producer Natalie Thompson, who noted that without

good scripts the Jamaican film industry will not

move forward.

“Our industry will not develop if we don’t develop stories that are our own. It does not necessarily have to be set in rural Jamaica or downtown Kingston, but we must incorporate our

folklore into our stories in order to move forward,” Thompson added.

It was the same cry from book publisher Kellie Magnus. For her, one of the problems she faces is the lack of engaging Jamaican stories, especially for children.

“I am constantly bombarded by really bad stories.

They all seem to follow a similar path, as a result I now tell authors that I want no stories about donkeys.”

For director of VPAJ, Trevor Fearon, Jamaica’s creative industries continue to “nibble around the edges of the treasure trove of local stories” which he believes, if transformed creatively, could become something major.

Fearon, however, agrees there is a lack of substantial research of the country’s folklore and the stories which form a huge part of its culture.

“How well do we know some of our folktales and stories; where did they originate? Stories about ‘ole higue’ and rollin’ calf could form the starting point for a great horror film,”

Fearon said.