Guyanese-based New Yorker presents thrilling film on colonial Guyana
(Hardbeatnews.com)
Guyana Chronicle
July 12, 2004
NEW YORK - Incredible is the only word that can be used to describe the preview of 'GUIANA 1838,' the Rohit Jagessar film that focuses on the abolition of slavery and the arrival of Indians in the British West Indies during the 19th century.
The vivid cinematography on 'GUIANA 1838'sucks the viewer in immediately and takes one through the journey of indentured laborers arriving on the ship, the Hesperus, and the conflict that initially ensues between the black slaves and the new arriving Indian ones.
Kumar Gaurav, playing Laxman, a laborer brought in from Calcutta aboard the Hesperus, is awesome and the writer's skill at showing the bond that eventually forms between him and the black escaped slaves is brilliant. The unity that is shown on screen should be now used to translate into killing whatever racist insecurities that persist in Guyana today. For that especially, Jagessar must be lauded.
Also featured in the film, shot in Berbice, Guyana and set for release in Australia on August 4th, and later in the U.S., is Urmila, an innocent girl caught up in the system of indentureship, and Cabi, a Maroon, played by Guyanese actor Henry Rodney.
British actors Rufus Graham and Thomas Garvey play the white overseer and driver on the John Gladstone plantations of Vreed - en - Hoope and Vreed - en Stein.
Jagessar, who independently produced the film, skillfully takes the viewer through abolition and as the news of freedom for the slaves in announced, Cabi returns to yell the famous line, "Massa day done!" But it is the response that is left with the reader and keeps ringing in one's ears: "No Cabi, Massa day 'nah done."
Readers can view the three-minute trailer of the film by logging on to http://www.rbcradio.com/guiana1838.html.
Jagessar is the founder of RBC Radio, which he touts as America's first 24-hou Asian-Indian radio station broadcasting in New York, New Jersey to over 100,000 family subscribers through a special radio created by the RBC crew.
He reportedly began work on the film some seven years ago along with another Guyanese, Farouk Juman.