Bridgetown, Barbados – January 31st 2015. CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution (CTWD), the region’s premier distribution platform for Caribbean film and television content is proud to launch its first Production Support Program, which continues to build on CaribbeanTales’ vision of creating strong, original, sustainable Caribbean film and television content for the international market.

The Production Support Program, a project of the CaribbeanTales Incubator (CTI), pairs the winners of this years Big Pitch with experienced Executive Producers to help ​bring the projects to production as quickly as possible. 

This year’s Big Pitch winner was Melissa Gomez, whose project “Defining Moments”, a 13-part online series of documentary shorts brings to life extraordinary moments of everyday Caribbean people. Coming on board as CTWD Executive Producer is Christopher Laird, prolific Producer and Co-founder of the region’s first all-Caribbean television station, Gayelle the Channel.

First runner-up Camille Selvon Abrahams (Trinidad and Tobago) will be producing “Magnificent Maggie,” a children’s animated series about a girl whose magical glasses help her delve into the world of science. CBC content developer and experienced Producer Nick Davis will be joining the project as CTWD Executive Producer.

Jelani Nias (Canada), whose pitch came third, will be developing his critically acclaimed novel “Where Eagles Crawl and Men Fly” into a science fiction drama series, under CTWD Executive Producer Floyd Kane, whose numerous credits include Bowling For Columbine, Shake Hands with the Devil, and North/South.

Launched in 2010, and now in its 6th year, the CaribbeanTales Incubator is a training and production platform that gives selected Caribbean Diaspora filmmakers an opportunity to hone their creative and business skills with the aim of increasing the pool of strong, world-class, indigenous content from the Caribbean.  The annual CTI Market program is a competitive process, and includes a month of online market preparation followed by a week of workshops and networking opportunities with world-class film and television specialists in Toronto, Canada.  CTI culminates in the Big Pitch, where participants pitch their developed projects to industry professionals, who vote on the projects that have the most creative and commercial potential at the TIFF Bell Lightbox during the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Production Support Program is a 6 month process that aims to bridge the gap between pitching and production. Participants will be invited to present their results in Toronto in September.

As this inaugural CTI Production Support program kicks off, the new Call is now open for applicants to the 2015 Incubator Program, to take place from September  2- 9th, 2015. The deadline for applications to CT2015 is April 30th 2015.

For more information about the Production Support Program and to apply to CTI2015, please visit http://www.caribbeantales-incubator.com.

Photo Captions: Melissa Gomez (Antigua) creator of “Defining Moments” (top left); Camille Selvon Abrahams (Trinidad) (middle left); Jelani Nias (Canada) (bottom right).