Hollywood films to feature Tanzania attractions

THE motivating efforts initiated by President Samia Suluhu Hassan through the Royal Tour film have continued to bear fruits after the US-based film company highlighted plans to feature most of the country’s attractive areas in Hollywood films.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism Hassan Abbas noted these after visiting the world-renowned Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, where he met the Vice- President of Paramount Pictures, Sharon Keyser, who described Tanzania as a beautiful country whose company would like to use most of the countries attraction in filming.

The PS noted that the coming of Paramount Pictures could promote Tanzania more internationally in tourism and the film industry in the country.

Along with the “Tanzania; The Royal Tour”, very few movies have used the scenery of Tanzania, including Tanzania: A Journey Within (2011) and The Honeymoon (2023).

During the PS working visit to Hollywood, he also met with a professional photographer Karen Ballard. He discussed with the photographer how to further promote Tanzanian tourism through digital and modern photography.

Karen, in addition to being the official photographer for the Royal Tour films of Rwanda (2018), Poland (2019), and Tanzania (2022), also works with the most prominent film stars here, including participating as an official photographer in the film “The Expendables” with celebrities like Sylvester Stallone(Rambo), Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Harrison Ford.

Karen works with major Hollywood companies, including Warner Bros, Paramount, Universal, Sony, Netflix, Amazon, and Apple. Before that, she worked reporting the events of the White House for more than ten years, including her photos used officially in the book “Barack Obama: The Official Inaugural Book.”