It will 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 Organization, proposed an Olympic partnership dubbed 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.
President Samuda, who was also a speaker at the festival, expressed confidence that the proposed partnership will 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."
Mayor Zámečník welcomed the proposal and signaled the support of the city of Liberec which has a very respectable and enviable history in sport and the film festival.
Within the context of history in the making, JOA Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer, Ryan Foster said “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."
Meanwhile, Renata Balašová, director of the Liberec International Film Festival, which has a history spanning more than two decades, endorsed what promises to be an exciting and innovative “connection”.
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 across the hemisphere building 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.