TV & Movies
From Lime Tree Lane to Death in Paradise: Why the Caribbean Still Needs Its Own Screen Industry
Review overview
Read the full review below for the author’s perspective.
The full review
From Lime Tree Lane to Death in Paradise: Why the Caribbean Still Needs Its Own Screen Industry
When I was a teenager, I paid attention whenever a movie or television show gave Caribbean people room to be themselves. I’m in my mid-forties now, writing books and stories with Caribbean characters, and I still notice how far apart those moments can be. That doesn’t mean good work stopped coming out of the region. It means that even now, if I want to recommend a Jamaican series or a film from another island, I can’t always tell a reader where to watch it. That gap is part of why I write the stories I do.
What Jamaica and the Caribbean already proved
Jamaica had Lime Tree Lane on JBC from 1988 to 1997. Nine years of a fictional Jamaican neighbourhood on television is a lesson in what happens when local characters get to build relationships with an audience over time. Then there was Royal Palm Estate, which began on CVM in 1994 and carried its family drama well beyond the ’90s. Around the region, Martinican filmmaker Euzhan Palcy had already made Sugar Cane Alley (1983), a boy’s coming-of-age story set in colonial Martinique. None of those stories could be moved somewhere else without changing what made them work. PBCJ archive · Research on Jamaican television · Euzhan Palcy’s film archive
Dancehall Queen (1997) and Third World Cop (1999) found audiences at home. I like putting them next to One Love (2003), which turned to romance, religion and music, and the Bahamian Rain (2008), Maria Govan’s film about a young runner finding her footing in Nassau. Those films remind me that Caribbean audiences don’t need every story to be a crime story or a period piece. There’s room for far more kinds of lives than the ones that usually make it through the door. Rotterdam festival archive · Jamaican film history · TIFF archive
What British television has shown us
In Britain, Channel 4’s Desmond’s (1989–94), created by St Lucian writer Trix Worrell, gave a Guyanese family and a Peckham barbershop six series. The BBC’s Chef! (1993–96) did something different: it put Lenny Henry’s talented, impossible Gareth Blackstock in charge of a restaurant kitchen and trusted him to carry a workplace comedy. Decades later Henry wrote ITV’s Three Little Birds, drawing on his mother’s journey from Jamaica to Britain. Steve McQueen’s Small Axe likewise made room for different kinds of West Indian British stories: Mangrove and Lovers Rock don’t have to tell the same story about the same community. BFI on Desmond’s · Museum of Broadcast Communications on Lenny Henry · ITV on Three Little Birds · BFI on Small Axe
Then there’s Death in Paradise, filmed in Guadeloupe and set on the fictional island of Saint Marie. I’m glad a Jamaican actor like Shantol Jackson can play a recurring detective there. I’d also like to see more series where the region supplies the people making the decisions, not just the setting and the cast. A successful British crime series can open doors without being a substitute for a Caribbean-led industry. Red Planet Pictures · 2026 recommission announcement
Why one good film rarely guarantees another
I wouldn’t say we’ve lost the ability to make good work. Nor is there enough comparable data to say that every island makes fewer productions than it did a generation ago. The Caribbean Development Bank identifies barriers to financing, training, networks and access to markets. You can shoot a film on a smaller budget than you once could, but that doesn’t buy you editing time, subtitles or a distributor. The producers of From Yard say their 2023 pilot reached Tubi in 2025. That’s progress, and a reminder that getting a pilot seen and getting a season commissioned are two different jobs. Caribbean Development Bank · From Yard production notes
What I’d build next
Nigeria’s Nollywood shows what repeat production can do for skills and audience habits. India’s NFDC Film Bazaar offers another lesson: connect writers and producers with buyers while projects are still being developed, not only after the premiere. The Caribbean doesn’t need to match those markets in size. It needs to make smaller markets work together. Jamaica’s Screen Development Initiative and CaribbeanTales already give that work a place to start. UNESCO on African cinema · NFDC Film Bazaar · JAMPRO’s Screen Development Initiative · CaribbeanTales distribution
Start with broadcasters and funders in several territories jointly commissioning a few short seasons, paying crews properly and deciding what to renew using real audience figures. Set aside money for promotion, captions and subtitles before production begins. Agree on release windows that include local free-to-air television, community screenings and affordable streaming, with a simple country-by-country guide showing where to watch. Give producers transparent terms so they know what they’re being paid and what rights they keep.
In my fiction, I want Caribbean people to have room to be funny, ambitious, wrong, ordinary and extraordinary, sometimes in the same chapter. I want that same freedom for the people writing our television and films. A thriving industry will be the one that makes room for their second story, and gives the rest of us a chance to see it.
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