MISSION:
CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution (CTWD) is the first full-service film distribution company in the English-speaking Caribbean, and aims to become the reference point for producers and buyers of Caribbean-themed content.
NOT-FOR-PROFIT
CTWD, founded in 2010 by award-winning filmmaker Frances-Anne Solomon, was registered as a not for profit organisation in 2012, and is governed by a Board of Directors including creative industries expert Dr. Keith Nurse, economist and businessman Dr. Terrence Farrell, media personality and producer Lisa Wickham, and filmmaker and writer Mary Wells.
MEMBER OF THE CARIBBEANTALES MEDIA GROUP
As part of the CaribbeanTales brand, CTWD has helped to develop platforms regionally and internationally for exhibition, marketing and distribution of Caribbean-themed film and audio visual content.
CARIBBEANTALES CHARITY
The CaribbeanTales brand also includes CaribbeanTales.ca, a not-for-profit organisation based in Toronto, Canada that produces educational multimedia products, and the CaribbeanTales Film Festival Group, that holds annual events, film festivals, and filmmaker training programmes in Barbados, Toronto, and New York.
(BOARD CHAIR) Dr. Keith Nurse is the Caribbean’s foremost creative industries’ expert with wide and varied international and regional expertise in his field. He has held senior positions and consultancies with governments, NGOs and international, regional and national agencies. He has taught at the University of the West Indies and the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is a former director at two state-owned enterprises in Trinidad and Tobago: National Petroleum Marketing Company and National Agro-Chemicals Ltd. He is also a director at Media 21 Ltd., Contemporary Caribbean Arts Ltd. (CCA 7) and a former director at the Entertainment Industry Development and Export Company.
(DIRECTOR, CEO) Frances-Anne Solomon is an award-winning filmmaker of Caribbean heritage and a writer, producer and director in film, TV, Radio and New Media. She was born in England to Trinidadian parents and educated in Trinidad, Canada, England and France. She then went on to build a successful career over thirteen years in England with the BBC as a TV Drama Producer and Executive Producer. In 2000, she returned to Toronto where she continued to create direct and produce her own project. In 2001 she successfully launch the first CaribbeanTales project.
DIRECTOR/PUBLIC RELATIONS) Media producer/director/TV Personality, Lisa Wickham is the CEO of Imagine Media International Limited, best known for its range of products under the E-Zone Entertainment brand. In 2007 and 2008, she was the Artistic Director and Producer of the highly-acclaimed Annual COTT Music Awards.
(DIRECTOR) Mary Wells is an award winning independent film Director / Writer and Producer based in Jamaica and in the USA, with over twenty years’ experience in television and film production. In 1999, her short documentary, “Now Jimmy!” was awarded “Outstanding Documentary from the Caribbean” in the Sheryl Lee Ralph Film/Music Festival. It was also accepted at TIFF in 2002. “Kingston Paradise”, her first feature, was recently award “Best Diaspora Feature” in the African Movie Academy Awards 2014. She studied Television Production and the Theatre Arts in Washington DC and continues to work on a broad variety of Film / TV productions.
(DIRECTOR) Christopher Laird is Managing Director, co-owner and co-founder of Banyan Ltd. and he has produced more than three hundred documentaries, dramas and other video productions during his forty-year professional career. His genius has been recognized and rewarded with many national, regional and international awards. He is responsible for establishing the Caribbean Film and Video Archive which is (arguably) the largest collection of Caribbean culture on video. In 2003 he founded, with Errol Fabien, the Region’s first all-Caribbean free-to-air television station, Gayelle. In 2009 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of the West Indies.