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