October 05 2007

Indo-Guyanese Film-Maker
Visits with Schenectady High School Students

Following  Successful World Premiere, Shundell Prasad Makes Her Way to Schenectady Where Guyanese Population is Increasing

Documentary filmmaker Shundell Prasad met with a group of Schenectady High School students Friday afternoon in the Sayles School of Fine Arts at Schenectady High School.  Prasad, director of the Indo-Guyanese film “Once More Removed: a Journey Back to India,” chronicles her quest for her roots in India.  The film, following success of it’s World Premiere in New York, Toronto and Atlanta as well as government screenings in London, India and Guyana, is making it’s way to Schenectady, home to a rapidly, increasing, vibrant Guyanese population.  The film will be screened at Proctor’s Theatre on Friday, October 12 at 8 pm. 

Prasad spoke with the students in two Global History classes about her experiences and journey searching three continents to uncover the reasons behind her family’s removal from their native, India during British Imperial Rule - and later -  her parent’s migration out of their birth country, Guyana.  The students also enjoyed a 15-minute preview of the the young film-maker's documentary.

"I started researching this film while I was still in college," said Prasad who graduated with a degree in film and television production from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts "because I wanted to know why I looked Indian but did not have any connections or ties with India."  

While doing research, Prasad said she learned of the massive international Indian Diaspora which is estimated to be well over 20 million people.  "These are 20 million stories, many of which are not rosy success tales, but stories of displacement, struggle and survival, like my family' story from India to Guyana and Finally to America."

In her film, Prasad takes the viewer from the vibrant Indo-Caribbean neighborhoods in Queens, NY to the sweltering hot sugarcane fields of Guyana.

The Journey continues from Guyana, where ship records are secured from the National Archives, to the ports of Calcutta, India, where the 19^th Century East India Company ships carried human cargo out of India to distant lands.  From Calcutta, the camera follows the filmmaker as she journeys into the land of her ancestors in Bihar, India, where massive crowds await the sight of their returned relative.  

Once More Removed was invited by the Government of India to be previewed at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas International conference, in Hyderabad, India in January 2006.  Prasad was also a speaker on the Indian Diaspora at this conference.