When filmmaker Mary Wells started the journey toward her first feature film, Kingston Paradise, she had no delusions that it would be an easy road, but she hadn’t expected it to be as arduous or as long.

To many, the short, dark rotund man peddling pillows in Barbican Square, is just a regular figure on the streets of Kingston. One of the many Jamaicans who follow their entrepreneurial leanings in a small time selling on the streets.

The Annual Caribbean Tales Film Showcase which stretches over a month, has added a new element to its roster of screenings, Gems of the Caribbean. Gems opens the 8th staging of Caribbean Tales, on August 17 with films from Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and St. Lucia.

The death knell hasn’t quite tolled for filmmaking in Jamaica, but it is animation that has now become the favourite child of the creative industries, at least from the perspective of the government.

Animation will be among the events used to illustrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Jamaica and Japan as the Japan Foundation and the Embassy of Japan in Jamaica stage their first Japanese Animation Film Festival Festival and manga poster competition.

Jamaica’s animation industry is still embryonic, so much so that to describe it as an “industry” seems a little grandiose. However, a growing number of Jamaican animators have enjoyed some success.

The inaugural Kingstoon animation festival and conference ended on June 21 with the selection of eight winners in four categories Character Development, Storyboard or Script, Experimental Animation and Final Animation Product.

Jamaica is set to get a little more animated with the arrival of the Kingstoon Animation Festival, a strategy to position animation as one of the island’s growth areas in the hopes of stimulating the economy and job creation.

The third film in the Iron Man franchise has slammed into movie theatres with all its expected laughs and thrills. Even though it is probably the weakest of the three films, it is far from being a dud.