One of the film industry's major houses -- Miramax Films -- will be sending a senior executive to this year's Bermuda International Film Festival.

Andrew Herwitz, a senior vice president with the billion dollar business company, plays a major role in deciding what movies the company will decide to financially back. And he will be one of the panelists in a workshop on film financing set for the week of the Festival.

Miramax has gained prominence in recent years with films such as `The Cider House Rules', `The Talented Mr. Ripley' and `Shakespeare In Love', all raking in millions at the box office as well as picking up Oscar wins.

The workshop slated for Saturday 21st April will have a panel of key people from the film industry and speakers from the finance industry.

They will discuss and demonstrate how Bermuda, as an offshore international finance centre, could facilitate the financial side of film making. With other leading figures on the panel such as Rod Stoneman, chief executive of the Irish Film Board, Paul Cohen, CEO of Manhattan Pictures International, and Mark Litwak, film attorney, the discussions are expected to cover a number of relevant areas.

Paul Cohen, who has been a film distributor in the US for 28 years, said: "Nobody should invest in cinema unless they can at a comfort level. I believe there is a very specific pool of potential investment capital in the Island.

Bermuda has so many high level executives from high level companies and the best way is to educate them because they themselves are not confident in their own understanding of the film industry.

"There are also many people living in Bermuda who are a diverse group of people who have investment capital.'' One of the speakers at the workshop will be lawyer Deborah Poole from Appleby Spurling & Kempe. She said that there is the flexibility in Bermuda to create all types of financing and she will explain some of them to the workshop.

"They could probably use some kind of segregated account structure for financing. Although it may be more expensive it would be the quickest and most cost efficient way to put financing through,'' she said.

Another possible route, she suggests, would be through a vehicle listing on the Bermuda Stock Exchange's mezzanine listing. This type of listing is for start up companies and those not yet ready for full BSX listing and it creates a certain amount of liquidity in shares.

A third possibility she feels may be utilising the available tax concessions in the UK. An investor resident in the UK for tax purposes invests into a UK film through a Bermuda partnership. The investor receives up to 100 percent tax relief if it is structured this way.

"It could also be useful to tap into the reinsurance and asset management expertise here because there is such a lot of money under management here,'' she said.

Mark Litwak, another member of the workshop's panel, will present a seminar about where the money goes. Taking a particular film he will take attendees along the route from gross receipts to net receipts.

Aideen Ratteray Pryse, director of Bermuda International Film Festival, said: "I am delighted we have assembled such a strong line-up of panelists. Our workshop panels give members of our local film, arts and business communities opportunities to meet and speak with leading members of the film industry, people they just wouldn't run into otherwise.

"In the past our filmakers have praised us for the quality of our panels and the discussions that ensue. One filmmaker last year said that our film financing panel was a `million dollar panel.' I couldn't agree more, and I am happy to see that our panels this year are equally strong.'' The workshop will be followed by breakout sessions where attendees can meet one-on-one with the panelists.