Prasad
said the film launch at the Bombay Theater in
Fresh Meadows, which marks her directorial debut,
is being sponsored by among others, Tropical
Funding/Home Link Realty, The Ahmad Group of
Companies, Kawal P. Totaram, PC, Allstate
Insurance Company, Jay Jainarine and Zara Realty
Holding Corp.
After
its New York premiere, the film will be shown in
Toronto in early June when the Indian Consulate
General will host a screening. The film will play
at the prestigious Nehru Centre, administered by
the Indian High Commission in London in July,
before returning to India to have its Indian
premiere in Calcutta this August.
Prasad said the film follows her journey as she
searches three continents to uncover the reasons
behind her family’s removal from their native
India, during British imperial rule and later, her
parents’ migration out of their birth country,
Guyana.
The
release added, “In this coming-of-age, cinema
verite style documentary film, the search takes
the viewer from the vibrant Indo-Caribbean
neighbourhoods in Queens, NY to the sweltering hot
sugarcane fields of Guyana, where men toil over
the land as their forefathers did a century ago
when they were brought to the cane fields as
indentured servants by the British. The journey
continues from Guyana, where ship records are
secured from the National Archives, to the ports
of Calcutta, India, where the 19th Century East
India Company ships carried human cargo out of
India to distant lands. From Calcutta, we follow
the filmmaker as she journeys into the land of her
ancestors in Bihar, India, where massive crowds
await the sight of a returned daughter.”
Prasad
is a graduate of the prestigious New York
University, Tisch School of the Arts where she
majored in Film & Television Production. After
graduation, she worked with HBO Documentaries,
before setting off to make her own film.
At
age 25, she has already worked for many major
media outlets including CNN, The Wall Street
Journal, A&E/The History Channel and WorldRace
Productions/Jerry Bruckheimer Television.
“I
started researching this film while I was still in
university, simply because I wanted to know why I
looked Indian, but did not have any connections or
ties with India”, she said.
“During
the process, I became aware of the massive
international Indian Diaspora, which
is estimated to be well over 20 million
people…20 million stories, many of which are not
rosy success tales, but rather stories of
displacement, struggle and survival, like my
family’s story from India to Guyana and finally
to America. Great injustices have been committed
against these people…many people know about the
injustices committed against South African Indians
because of Gandhi ji’s crusade, but the stories
from East
Africa, Guyana and Fiji
are overwhelmingly disturbing. The current story
of the Gulf migrant labourers has to be recognised
and dealt with as well”, Prasad said.
day,
May 06, 2006
