`I have worked in many countries before and have seen many spectacular places but have never seen a thing like this.’ – Mr. Warner Herzog
GUYANA’S tourism potential is due for a significant publicity boost with a novel movie based on the Kaieteur Falls.
The Marco Polo film company that is here to make the movie plans to showcase the film at its first screening during the `Wild Screen’ film festival in Bristol, England.
The production already has premier billing for the festival, which is due for October this year, officials of the German-based film company said yesterday.
The actual shooting of the film will begin on Sunday and the entire movie would be shot in Guyana over a period of four to five weeks, the officials said.
The film would carry sub-texts, the main one being "the location (Kaieteur) in this absolute spectacle of nature and its landscape".
Marco Polo's Director of Movies, Mr. Warner Herzog, at a news conference yesterday at the Ministry of Tourism in Georgetown, said filming would be done with the use of a specially built balloon-type airship.
The vehicle would also be highlighted in the film as the concept of a flying dream, he said, describing it as an "epic voyage around the world in eighty days, doing work that nobody has done before from such a platform".
Herzog said the idea of the film is of particular interest because of the airship, the main vehicle that is going to be used in it.
Such a vehicle for this particular purpose was never built before, he said. It can float silently and is completely ecologically compatible.
The airship would float around the canopy of the forest in the area discovering plants and wildlife. It was developed by a Professor of Queen Mary's College in London.
The vehicle was due to arrive in Guyana last evening. It would be transported to Mahdia, then to the Kaieteur National Park - the main location where the filming would be done.
The film crew is also planning to go to Surama and the Mount Roraima plateau, Herzog said.
However, the biggest logistical problem is that the airship would have to be filled with helium gas that has to be compressed and transported in heavy containers, he explained.
He said the idea of having such a vehicle being used for, and in the filming, is part of his interest in establishing a new perspective in movie-making that has not been possible before in cinemas.
"I fell in love with Kaieteur, the entire region, not only the water falls. I have worked in many countries before and have seen many spectacular places but have never seen a thing like this", he commented.
But it is not just the 'spectacle' that the film crew is looking for in Guyana and there is much more that the country has to offer, Herzog said.
He said Guyanese hospitality is very special and not seen very often in other parts of the world.
Possibilities are in abundance here. Guyana does not look like one country, but a variety of many different types of nature making it very interesting to do work here, he said.
The Marco Polo Film Company is the biggest in Germany and has been in the business for 18 years. The company produced about 30 different films for which it has won many awards.
The filming project in Guyana began to develop three years ago, involving an engineer who created the airship.
Tourism Minister, Mr. Manzoor Nadir said Guyana was very fortunate that Marco Polo has chosen here as a major location to do filming.
The film would be of great benefit to Guyana advertising the country as a nature and eco-tourism destination, he said.
Executive Director of the Guyana Tourism Authority, Mr. Donald Sinclair, who was also at the briefing, said the movie making is a very exciting development and is serving the tourism objective.
These are the kinds of developments the Tourism Authority looks at as windows of opportunity for opening Guyana to the world, he said.