It is set to be a signal milestone when the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) initiates the ‘Kingston Liberec Connection’ as a model partnership in the global sport film industry.

On a recent visit to the Czech Republic, JOA President Christopher Samuda, who was a guest of the Liberec Film Festival Organisation and a speaker at the festival, was officially received by the Mayor of Liberec, Jaroslav Zámečník, at the mayoral office in the Town Hall. There Samuda proposed an Olympic partnership  – the ‘Kingston Liberec Connection’ – between the cities of  Kingston and Liberec in strengthening bi-lateral relationships between Jamaica and the Czech Republic in the sport film industry.

Samuda expressed confidence that the proposed partnership would serve to “birth and develop a sporting cultural economy that will see  mutual investments in talents across the professional spectrum in the sport film industry while giving the peoples of Jamaica and the Czech Republic opportunities to experience, in cinema and film, cultural realities of each other in bridging the oceanic divide”.

Zámečník welcomed the proposal and signalled the support of the city of Liberec which has an enviable history in sport and the film festival. 

Ryan Foster, JOA secretary general and chief executive officer, in expressing that “history is in the making,”  went on to say that “the JOA looks within but also beyond the boundaries of Jamaica for partners who, with us, will establish landmark executions and lasting legacies for the benefit  of generations in the global village of sport”.

In th meantime, Renata  Balašová, director of the Liberec International Film Festival, which has a history of more than 20 years, endorsed what promises to be an exciting and innovative “connection”.

HOMEGROUND PRODUCT ROOTED IN JAMAICAN SOIL

Entitled the ‘Kingston Liberec Connection’, the initiative comes at a time when the JOA’s educational agenda, through its ‘Stamina’ series, will be expanding its reach hemispherically in building, cross-borders, capacity in athletes, coaches and administrators intra and extra-regionally.

“We, the JOA are a homegrown product rooted in the soil of Jamrock but this administration considers the apex body also as an international commodity in the business of sport as we play our part in sustaining an ever dynamic universal sport economy,” Samuda said.

The Czech Olympic Committee has also expressed its support of what will be undoubtedly a  groundbreaking “connection” in modern sport diplomacy.