Financial incentives are essential to creating a lasting movie-making industry in the Cayman Islands, according to the producer behind a glut of major films shot on the island during the COVID-19 bubble.
As the credits rolled following the premiere of the first of those movies to be released locally – an enjoyable action thriller called ‘The Baker’ – attention quickly turned to the existential question floating around the island’s nascent movie industry: ‘What’s next?’
In the words of Productivity Media CEO William Santor, Cayman was a “miraculous little jewel” that stood out globally during the dark days of COVID-19 as a virus-free environment where filmmakers were able to work.
The production company brought A-List Hollywood names like Nicolas Cage, Harvey Keitel and Bob Saget to the island to shoot multiple movies back-to-back in one of the few places on Earth that was not locked down.
‘The Baker’, which premiered Friday at Camana Bay, is the first of six movies shot on island to be released internationally.
Friday’s event was shorn of some of its star quality, with Ron Perlman – the expressive face of the film – among the acting talent unable to attend because of ongoing industrial action in Hollywood.
But there were two Cayman Islands Cabinet ministers – André Ebanks and Dwayne Seymour – in attendance, as Santor spelled out what Cayman needs to do to ensure it has a lasting movie industry now the world has returned to normal.
Incentives and logistics are key, the producer told host Vicki Wheaton in a question-and-answer session following the showing at the Camana Bay Cinema on Friday.
A virus-free environment is no longer a competitive edge and the empty hotels that eagerly accommodated cast and crew in 2020 and 2021 are filled with high-paying tourists once more.
Discussions under way
Santor said he had recently met with Seymour and Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan to discuss possible production incentives for filmmakers.
“In order to be competitive in the marketplace, we need to look at what other jurisdictions are doing in order to draw the industry to those jurisdictions. So that [discussion is] under way and we need to keep progressing on that side,” he said.
Across the globe, popular film locations use close to 100 different varieties of tax-rebate incentives to attract movie-makers to their location, according to a report by PwC for the Cayman Islands government.
Caymanian filmmaker Frank E. Flowers spelled out the need for an incentive policy in an interview with the Compass last year, saying: “You just don’t get to make your movie without a rebate, and that’s the cold, hard truth.”
Other barriers, according to Santor, include an absence of sufficient hotel rooms for cast and crew.
“The other [challenge] is actually accommodations inventory, with tourism being such a big element on the island,” he said, highlighting the sheer amount of cast and crew members needed for a major production.
“That’ll be one of the things that we’ll need to look at how we address in order for you to really be able to have that ongoing systemic flow of production business to the island.”
Despite those concerns, Santor expressed optimism about the future of the industry here and the amount of talent on island, including some who got their first experience on movies in the Cayman COVID shoots and have since gone on to work on productions overseas. He said stars like Perlman were keen to get back to Cayman and would have been in attendance on Friday if they could.
“We were hoping to get some of the actors down for the premiere. But with the strikes going on at the moment, that proved to be very difficult,” he said.
‘A regular Friday in Lillie’s’
While the headline acting talent may have been absent, there was a star or two in attendance on Friday.
Ronnie Hughes makes an impressive cameo as a gold-toothed Ukrainian gangster who holds his own in a memorable fight scene with Perlman’s ‘Baker’ character in the bathroom of Lillie’s nightclub.
“It was like a regular Friday in Lillie’s,” joked Hughes, a Krav Maga instructor based in Cayman, who also worked with Perlman on his fitness – a job which he said largely involved “keeping him away from the buffet cart”.
Hughes, a well-known character on island, was one of a few familiar faces to make an appearance in the film. Musician and Rooster FM DJ Bob Moseley shows up as a coroner, Michael McLaughlin turns up as a drug addict, and bartender Adam Slobodian makes a cameo as a bodyguard.
Badir Awe gets a top production credit as ‘unit manager’. Tonie Chisholm, who has gone on to work on numerous productions overseas, also gets a credit as an assistant director.
Hughes said it had been a “mind-blowing” experience for everyone.
“Even looking back now, it still doesn’t seem like it happened. It was a bit surreal,” he said.
“It wasn’t only just a good financial boost, it was also a morale boost in the country, as well.”
With due respect to Hughes’ cameo, perhaps the best supporting actor nomination in ‘The Baker’ will go to the Cayman Islands itself.
Though many of the locations were easy to spot to a local – from the opening shootout in the Camana Bay car park to the sunlit lobby of the Westin resort – this was one of the movies shot here where Cayman is not playing itself.
“In the script, it was referred to as ‘the big city’,” said Santor, explaining some of the CGI work that went in to adding skyscrapers and multi-lane highways to the backdrop.
He added, “I’m really excited about the fact that over the course of the next few films that we’re releasing, that we get to start exposing the island and the people and culture here to more people around the world, because it’s just so special.”
The next one to watch for moviegoers is likely to be ‘The Retirement Plan’, which stars Nicolas Cage as a man with a secret past trying to lie low in the Cayman Islands.
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