Portland premiere puts Jamaica beach access fight on screen

A documentary that confronts who gets to use Jamaica’s shores had its first public showing at the Portie Film Festival in Portland, putting fresh attention on the row over open access and the spread of private control along the coast.

Beach Inna Bondage, directed by Kingston-based Dutch filmmakers Emiel Martens and Elsie Vermeer, screened at the Portland event backed by Caribbean Creativity and Great Huts Resort Paradise on the Edge in Boston Bay.

“The immediate inspiration for Beach Inna Bondage came while we were having conversations with Jamaicans for another project, Film Location Jamaica. During those conversations, the issue of beach access repeatedly surfaced, particularly in an interview with Colin ‘Ringo’ Beckford at the Blue Lagoon,” the filmmakers told The Gleaner.

Beckford, a long-serving boat captain and vendor at the Blue Lagoon, has been tied to long-running clashes and public argument over who may enter the area and how the adjoining lands are run.

“It became clear that this was an urgent story that needed to be told. The deeper inspiration stems from our experience of visiting Jamaica’s coastline for more than 20 years, especially the island’s north coast. With each visit, we witnessed more walls, fences, and major all-inclusive resorts, very much out of proportion and out of place, obstructing not only access to the beaches but even the view of the coastline itself,” the duo said.

Martens and Vermeer cast their film as the next chapter in a discussion that has run for well over ten years.

“Back in 2009, Jamaican activist filmmaker Esther Figueroa addressed this issue in her documentary Jamaica for Sale, which exposed the rapid expansion of hotel developments and their profound economic, social, and environmental consequences. With Beach Inna Bondage, we wanted to examine how the situation has evolved since then, documenting both the continued commercial exploitation of Jamaica’s coastline and the growing resistance of communities and activists who are fighting for public access to the island’s beaches.”

They say the name works on more than one plane.

“The title operates on several levels. At its most immediate level, it refers to the restricted, controlled, and managed access to Jamaica’s beaches. By far, most of Jamaica’s beaches have become enclosed by hotels, restaurants, fences, gates, and private security. In this sense, the beaches themselves are in bondage: physically constrained and no longer accessible to the Jamaican people,” the producers said.

“The title also evokes the colonial history that underlies these contemporary struggles. The word bondage recalls plantation slavery, suggesting that the privatisation, commercialisation, and ‘touristification’ of the island’s coastline is part of a longer history of colonial extraction and capitalism. The film argues that today’s patterns of land ownership, tourism development, and beach exclusion are rooted in colonial systems of power and continue to reproduce inequalities, injustices, and discriminatory practices.”

Reggae artiste Keznamdi’s track Colonial Bondage supplied the spark for the title, and he also worked with the pair on the film’s music.

“Finally, the title carries a hopeful implication: if the beaches are in bondage, they can also be liberated … . Thus, Beach Inna Bondage is both a diagnosis of a historical injustice and an urgent call to action,” Martens and Vermeer said.

Much of the legal contest turns on the Beach Control Act of 1956, which sets the rules for Jamaica’s foreshore. Under that law, the foreshore belongs to the Jamaican government, and the state decides how beaches and coastal land may be used.

“This legal framework lies at the heart of the ongoing struggle over beach access documented in Beach Inna Bondage,” the producers explained.

Production started in September 2025 and ran for about 10 months, wrapping only a few days ahead of the world premiere at the Portie Film Festival on July 9. From May, the makers held community showings, mainly in Kingston, and used audience responses plus new developments around the issue to refine later cuts.

They call the documentary a “living project” and say more material is still coming.

“We are currently developing beachinnabondage.org, where viewers will be able to access the extended interviews and additional background materials. We are also launching an impact campaign to support the film’s advocacy goals, and are producing a companion documentary, provisionally titled Beach Inna Bondage: Harbour Style, which explores similar issues of beach access and environmental justice in and around Kingston Harbour.”

The work aims to spotlight beach access, land ownership, and what the directors view as tourism growth that cannot be sustained. In wider terms, it urges protection of Jamaica’s shores and the defence of public rights to reach them.

“The Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement, with whom we collaborated to make the film, advocates not only for unfettered public access to all Jamaican beaches, but also for recognising Jamaica’s beaches as legal entities with environmental rights,” Martens and Vermeer said.

Their core appeal, they argue, is plain.

“It is probably best captured by the closing statement of the film: ‘Join the movement for justice and take action to reclaim the coastline for all Jamaicans. Join the fight.’ And, on jabbem.org, you can find how you can join the movement and the ways in which you can contribute to the fight.”