Criticizing the Ministry of Tourism's '14 Islands Film Challenge', educator and columnist Nicolette Bethel said she doubts the project will have lasting effects and wonders at the governments lack of faith in local talent.

The ministry's competition will award $21,000 (converted from pounds) for the best films about The Bahamas and some of the footage may end up in future tourism campaigns. Only filmmakers from the United Kingdom were eligible, drawing criticism and leading about a dozen filmmakers and photographers, including Bahamas Film Festival founder and director Celi Moss, to protest in a demonstration on George Street, calling on the government to encourage local talent first.

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Responding to the criticism, the ministry said in a statement: "It would certainly have made headlines in The Bahamas if, instead of devising a search among Britain’s young film makers to be selected to come to The Bahamas to shoot, we’d announced that we were selecting 14 of our own people to shoot promotional videos of their country to show in Britain, but it would have had minimal impact in Britain.

"Aside from the interest British citizens will have in the output of their own young film makers, their output is likely to be perceived as more credible than material produced by Bahamians about their own country."

Bethel said both arguments were valid. But she said the project could have accomplished all its goals and incorporated local talent by allowing Bahamians to compete with the British filmmakers, "Rather than assuming — and stating that assumption publicly! — that Bahamian work is 'less credible' than UK work in Britain."

The former Director of Culture argued that the campaign will be short lived, perhaps partly because of its limited investment in local filmmakers.

"The government of The Bahamas, no matter its colour, stripe or initials, in the end, has absolutely no confidence in the people of The Bahamas to do anything of worth," Bethel said. "And because of that, government funds, whether collected from the taxpayers or borrowed from some international agency, are almost never invested in projects that will do more than maintain the aging status quo in our economy and our society."

Read more of Nicolette Bethel's perspective at her blog, 14 Films Challenge & the Ministry of Tourism

About Nicollette Bethel

Filmmakers protest ministry's UK initiative from The Tribune

14 Films Challenge films are ready to watch – Voting ends March 14th from The Bahamas Weekly

Film-makers line up for second 'best job in the world' in the Bahamas From The Guardian (UK)