Seychelles to gain visibility as a Film Production hub
Almasalla- Arab Travel Portal News – Seychelles is all set to gain unparalleled global exposure, as a high quality Television and Film Production Hub across Africa, Europe and Asia. The Seychelles islands, often described as a piece of heaven on Earth with breath-taking natural beauty, keeps fascinating Film Production Houses in search of inspiring backdrops. In recent years, renowned Film Production Houses in Europe and Asia ventured onto Seychelles shores in search for the perfect location to shoot love stories.
The latest is the “Promise’’ an affair beyond love, to be shot in Seychelles in July and August 2014. In a further path-breaking and unique association, a multi-national collaboration between Seychelles , Sri Lanka and India, an emotional love story “A love like this’’ is expected to be shot here. The latter is partly filmed in Seychelles and Sri Lanka.
The films will be directed by Chandran Rutnum, a renowned Hollywood Director with thirty years of experience, whose success is also recognised globally. His latest Film. “A Common Man’’ was released in 2013 with Sir Ben Kingsley and won numerous global awards. He also worked with stalwarts like Steven Spielberg and other notable Hollywood personalities.
The films with a fitting tagline “A love story in Seychelles’’ will showcase the island nation across three continents , thirty-five countries, and more than forty million people.
This initiative is an endeavour to achieve the twin objective of turning Seychelles, not only into a hub for high quality Television production in Africa, Europe and Asia but increase the visibility of the islands as a tourism destination with a difference.
An intrinsic part of the association is the First Television and Film Award in 2015 co-hosted by the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) and Africa Film Factory and a Telenovela that will be produced later this year.
The films will be co-produced in close partnership with the Seychelles National Radio and Television Station, Seychelles Broadcasting Cooperation (SBC) and Africa in Film Factory (A High Street Reverie initiative). Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation is working in close partnership with one of its Broadcasting partners in Africa, South Africa Broadcasting Association (SABA), to develop channel content and raised the Telenovelas visibility worldwide.
This all-encompassing project was presented by Antoine Onezime, Chief Executive Officer of Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation and Rahul Nehra – Joint Managing Director of HSR to the Ministry of Tourism and Culture to seek the Ministry’s support for the shooting of these films which will add a different dimension to the country’s tourism industry. The proposition was presented to, Alain St.Ange, the Seychelles Minister for Tourism and Culture, Anne Lafortune, Principal Secretary for Tourism and Nathalie Didon, Deputy Director of the Seychelles Tourism Board .
Minister St.Ange gave his blessing to the project and said ‘I welcome this collaboration, which could be a great initiative in helping to further raise the Seychelles visibility right across the world and bring a whole new dimension to our tourism initiatives’ He further added that during his proposed India visit in August this collaboration of Films, TV and Awards would be promoted and facilitated as a key joint initiative between Seychelles and India.
