Belize Has A New Film Commissioner

Belize’s new Film Commissioner, Carlo Habet, was recently appointed by Prime Minister, John Briceño. He now has the gargantuan task of bringing filmmakers to Belize and expanding the country’s film industry. Habet sits on more than one statutory board, has an extensive background in video production, and marketing, and has a production company that has made several successful short films for the government and private companies. Habet says they have a very promising project coming up as soon as next February.

Carlo Habet, Film Commissioner of Belize: “We have a great opportunity coming up in February that we will be going out actually to Europe to bring films back but other than that we find that people are already looking at Belize so the important thing is to kind of take great care of these people who want to know about the country because Belize has a lot to offer in that we have a lot of different geographic zones. You know we have like forests, beaches, mountains, we have towns and some of these are historical in appearance and so we are a unique destination and so it’s my job and our job as a commission because we are going to fill out some rules soon to kind of advertise these things and what makes Belize special and eventually what I’m looking at too in the short term is incentives. Most people when they come out of their country to make a film and they go to another country they are looking for incentives which are usually something like tax back or cash back. We’re not in a position to compete with all these countries because sometimes they literally give you money to come to their country and that’s not what we are going to do but we are trying to make it appealing through tax incentives and I could probably report a bit more on that probably next year.”

Habet says he envisions the commission under his capacity not only providing advancements in the country’s film industry but also contributing economic value to other sectors. 

Carlo Habet, Film Commissioner of Belize:  “One of the first things that I’m looking to do earlier next near is bringing a series of trainings that will get people trained for these positions and the idea is that we are trying to time it so that as soon as these trainings are over or very close to being over we have these movies coming in which are large movies which would require sets that have let’s say 40 or 50 people on them that’s very good employment and that’s even saying OK that’s before you look at hey people need to do things like make food even catering that’s like a very normal part of logistics, car rentals, hotels so it as a touristic element to it in that kind of boosts that industry as well.