BEACH INNA BONDAGE: THE FIGHT FOR JAMAICA'S COASTLINE
BEACH INNA BONDAGE: THE FIGHT FOR JAMAICA'S COASTLINE
by: Emiel Martens Elsie Vermeer in collaboration with JABBEM and Keznamdi
by: Emiel Martens Elsie Vermeer in collaboration with JABBEM and Keznamdi
FILM SYNOPSIS
Beach Inna Bondage is a short documentary by Kingston-based Dutch filmmaking duo Emiel Martens and Elsie Vermeer in collaboration with the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM) and Grammy-winning Jamaican reggae arist Keznamdi exploring the growing struggle for beach access in Jamaica. Since the 1950s, public access to the island’s beaches has steadily declined, leaving less than one percent of the coastline publicly accessible for Jamaicans. Over the decades, most of Jamaica’s beaches have been captured by private and tourist interests, and particularly since the 2000s large-scale hotel developments have limited beach access for Jamaicans.
This film follows the grassroots movement resisting the privatization of Jamaican beaches by zooming in on three frontline struggles: Bob Marley Beach near Kingston, the Blue Lagoon in the parish of Portland, and Mammee Bay Beach on the island’s North Coast. The interviewees, all Jamaicans, reveal how the 1956 Beach Control Act, which is still in effect today, vests ownership of the foreshore in the Jamaican state (and actually the British Crown) and traces how this colonial-era law, combined with the island’s all-inclusive tourism model, has displaced communities, disrupted livelihoods, and degraded environments. Interwoven with archival footage, news clips, and recordings of protest rallies and court cases, the interviewees situate today’s beach access struggles within Jamaica’s troubled history of land ownership following emancipation and independence. They argue that the island’s tourism industry replicates plantation logic by monopolizing land, concentrating wealth, exporting profits, and, ultimately, marginalizing the people.
Beach Inna Bondage shows that beach access, which is not only an issue in Jamaica but across the Caribbean and beyond, is an urgent matter of historical, economic, social, cultural and environmental justice, raising the question of who the tropical paradise of sun, sand, and sea truly serves, and at what cost...
FILMMAKER BIO
Beach Inna Bondage is the result of a close collaboration between Kingston-based filmmaking duo Emiel Martens and Elsie Vermeer in collaboration with the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM) and recent Grammy-winning Jamaican reggae artiste Keznamdi. Martens is a film scholar-practitioner working on the intersections of film, tourism and empire in the Caribbean and particularly
Jamaica.
He serves as an Assistant Professor of Postcolonial Film Studies at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. Vermeer is a documentary filmmaker and journalist with a background in visual anthropology, currently working with Dutch public broadcaster HUMAN while developing independent projects that focus on social inequalities, using participatory storytelling.
For Beach Inna Bondage, they worked closely together with Devon Taylor from JABBEM, a grassroots movement dedicated to protecting Jamaica’s coastal ecosystems while defending the public’s right to access and enjoy the island’s beaches through advocacy, education, and community action. Keznamdi, a leading voice in Jamaica’s reggae revival, contributed both his music, particularly his powerful song Colonial Bondage, and his voice to the film, reinforcing its themes of land rights, unsustainable tourism development, and social and environmental justice. Together, the filmmakers, activists, and artist combine documentary storytelling, grassroots advocacy, and reggae music to amplify the ongoing struggle for equitable access to Jamaica’s coastline and to inspire dialogue, action and change.
FILM CATEGEORY
Short Documentary
FILM BLOCK # - DAY, VENUE, TIME OF FILM SCREENING
WRITERS:
Emiel Martens
PRODUCERS:
Caribbean Creativity in collaboration with JABBEM and Keznamdi
KEY CAST:
Devon Taylor, Camala Thomas, Colin 'Ringo' Beckford, Alex Moore-Minott, Diana McCaulay, Treya Picking
OTHER:
NA
Beach Inna Bondage is a short documentary by Kingston-based Dutch filmmaking duo Emiel Martens and Elsie Vermeer in collaboration with the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM) and Grammy-winning Jamaican reggae arist Keznamdi exploring the growing struggle for beach access in Jamaica. Since the 1950s, public access to the island’s beaches has steadily declined, leaving less than one percent of the coastline publicly accessible for Jamaicans. Over the decades, most of Jamaica’s beaches have been captured by private and tourist interests, and particularly since the 2000s large-scale hotel developments have limited beach access for Jamaicans.
This film follows the grassroots movement resisting the privatization of Jamaican beaches by zooming in on three frontline struggles: Bob Marley Beach near Kingston, the Blue Lagoon in the parish of Portland, and Mammee Bay Beach on the island’s North Coast. The interviewees, all Jamaicans, reveal how the 1956 Beach Control Act, which is still in effect today, vests ownership of the foreshore in the Jamaican state (and actually the British Crown) and traces how this colonial-era law, combined with the island’s all-inclusive tourism model, has displaced communities, disrupted livelihoods, and degraded environments. Interwoven with archival footage, news clips, and recordings of protest rallies and court cases, the interviewees situate today’s beach access struggles within Jamaica’s troubled history of land ownership following emancipation and independence. They argue that the island’s tourism industry replicates plantation logic by monopolizing land, concentrating wealth, exporting profits, and, ultimately, marginalizing the people.
Beach Inna Bondage shows that beach access, which is not only an issue in Jamaica but across the Caribbean and beyond, is an urgent matter of historical, economic, social, cultural and environmental justice, raising the question of who the tropical paradise of sun, sand, and sea truly serves, and at what cost...
FILMMAKER BIO
Beach Inna Bondage is the result of a close collaboration between Kingston-based filmmaking duo Emiel Martens and Elsie Vermeer in collaboration with the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM) and recent Grammy-winning Jamaican reggae artiste Keznamdi. Martens is a film scholar-practitioner working on the intersections of film, tourism and empire in the Caribbean and particularly
Jamaica.
He serves as an Assistant Professor of Postcolonial Film Studies at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. Vermeer is a documentary filmmaker and journalist with a background in visual anthropology, currently working with Dutch public broadcaster HUMAN while developing independent projects that focus on social inequalities, using participatory storytelling.
For Beach Inna Bondage, they worked closely together with Devon Taylor from JABBEM, a grassroots movement dedicated to protecting Jamaica’s coastal ecosystems while defending the public’s right to access and enjoy the island’s beaches through advocacy, education, and community action. Keznamdi, a leading voice in Jamaica’s reggae revival, contributed both his music, particularly his powerful song Colonial Bondage, and his voice to the film, reinforcing its themes of land rights, unsustainable tourism development, and social and environmental justice. Together, the filmmakers, activists, and artist combine documentary storytelling, grassroots advocacy, and reggae music to amplify the ongoing struggle for equitable access to Jamaica’s coastline and to inspire dialogue, action and change.
FILM CATEGEORY
Short Documentary
FILM BLOCK # - DAY, VENUE, TIME OF FILM SCREENING
WRITERS:
Emiel Martens
PRODUCERS:
Caribbean Creativity in collaboration with JABBEM and Keznamdi
KEY CAST:
Devon Taylor, Camala Thomas, Colin 'Ringo' Beckford, Alex Moore-Minott, Diana McCaulay, Treya Picking
OTHER:
NA
