Opening Night of the Belize Film Festival

Mr Peters (featured in The Three Belizean Kings) and Angela Gegg
Miss Carrie Fairwether, Florencio Mes (of The Three Belizean Kings) and Angela Gegg
Cybel Martin (NYC Film-Maker), William Neal and Angela Gegg
Bone TV interviewing Mr. Florencio Mes (of The Three Belizean Kings)
Interviewing Angela Gegg

The Belize International Film Festival opened on Friday July twenty fourth at the Bliss Center for the Performing Arts. More than thirty five films will be showcased during this year’s festival and caters to all kind of movie lovers. Suzette Zayden of the Institute of Creative Arts is the festival organizer.

One of the main goals of the Belize International Film Festival, however, is to bring to centerstage films that are being made in the Caribbean and Central American regions along with Southern Mexico. These areas all have their own rich stories to tell, but whose themes and backgrounds all resonate strongly with our Belizean cultural traditions and way of life. In an effort to shine a stronger light on these often overshadowed regions, we have limited the submission of Short Films and Short Documentaries as open only to films from these regions.

Belize is a country blessed with rich cultural diversity amongst its peoples and amazing natural resources – on land, in the sea and even underground through it vast network of caves and now the recent discovery of oil in 2005. Belize, the only English Speaking country in Central American is also geographically the country looked most upon by CARICOM and SICA to be a critical link between the Caribbean and Central America regions. The Belize International Film Festival lives up to this expectation and continues in its aspirations to be an annual event that is looked forward to by both Belizeans and Visitors alike for its ability to bring together films, filmmakers and film enthusiasts from all over Belize, our neighboring regions and eventually the world to the Bliss Center in Belize City for 10 exciting days in July.



Yasser Musa's 20 Years of Art

Angela Gegg, Yasser Musa, Chantal Castillo

Ivan Duran & Angela Gegg

Chantal Castillo, Angela Gegg, Former Prime Minister to Belize, Said Musa

Angela Gegg, William Neal, Dian Haylock


Yasser Musa – 20 Years of Art – 1989/2009

Yasser Musa has been making art for 20 years. He is an art activist, promoter, poet, publisher and teacher. His entrance into the culture arena was at the end of junior college in 1989 with the self published first book of poems tilted “Poems.”

His visual art beginning came in August 1992 with Minus 8 a multi-media collaboration with Ivan Duran. Held at the then Bliss Institute Minus 8 directly questioned the traditional consensus of art pressing for a new understanding of the media and technological visual landscape.

His first solo exhibit came in 1995 titled Coming Out with a set of 50 paintings. He participated in his first international show Minus 5 at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans. Musa founded the Image Factory Art Foundation in June 1995, an institution which has been at the vanguard of promoting, exhibiting and publishing visual artists in Belize.

In 1996 he published the Belize City Poem which was made into a fifteen minute video. He has created several project works including, (a) The Clothes Line Project, (b) The Banana Boy Project, (c) The Facial Project (d) The Condensed Milk Project, and (e) Diary of a 100 Objects.

In 2000 Musa was part of a team of young Belizean artists organized by Joan Duran to present for the first time a collective approach to the internationalization of Belizean visual art. The exhibit Zero – new Belizean art opened in Merida, Yucatan in March 2000 and saw a massive 17,000 visitors. The exhibit went on tour to Cuba, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Portugal, and Spain.

Starting in 2004 Musa was a leading participant in the landings contemporary art project involving artists from Central America, the Caribbean and South Eastern Mexico.

As part of the 20 Years of Art show Musa released loose electricity a set of recorded poems on CD.

Musa’s latest work The Mahogany Project was presented at the exhibit opening. The Mahogany Project is a participatory art action where the artist will engage some 100 persons to plant a Mahogany tree in a space of their choice, and he will attempt to monitor the progress of the growth of the trees over a 20 year time period.

The exhibition opened on Friday July 17, 2009 at 7:00pm. There are some 45 works of art, 5 videos, and 3 panels of printed material. The show will run until August 14.