“Echos From The Plantation” to be released in time for 180th anniversary of Indian arrival to Guyana

“Echos From The Plantation” – a movie that portrays the livelihood of Indians on the sugar plantation will be released on Saturday at the Nirvana Humanitarian Foundation at Metem-Mere-Zorg, West Coast Demerara, in time for the 180th anniversary of the arrival of East Indians to Guyana.
The movie which has a cast of local cane, provision and rice farmers was directed by Kishore Sewnarine out of New York.
The movie came about in 2014 when the director made a research presentation at his office as a speech.
One year later, he used that speech as an opening monologue for a play staged by Nirvana Humanitarian Foundation Inc, USA.
While performing the monologue both in NYC and Toronto, Sewnarine noticed tears in the eyes of the audience as they related to the story. After the production, many asked if he can record the monolog and post it up to YouTube.
While it caught his ears, it did not satisfy his artistic desire. He had been acting since 1977 and to slap together a YouTube video with stock footage from the Internet was not sounding good to him. As such, he committed to making a movie.
He began writing the script in 2016 and the scenes were shot it in 2017. The scenes were shot in Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo. In one of the scenes, the village of India was built from scratch in Perseverance Estate on the Essequibo coast.
The logee and slave ship were also built at Bola Sawmill in Hubu.
The primary reason for this production is to celebrate/commemorate the 180th anniversary of the arrival of Indians in Guyana.
Because of that intention, the movie focuses on the first batch of Indians only. There are many other elements of the Indian history in Guyana but many of those elements happened later in the saga.