First Indian film fest in Trinidad and Tobago

Port-of-SPAIN - The first Indian film festival in Trinidad and Tobago has a series of movies lined up to whet the appetite of cinema lovers here, a large percentage of whom are of Indian origin.

The Indian High Commission has networked with several media and business organisations for the Indian film fest at Movietown, Port-of-Spain and Chaguanas from Nov 17-23 to mark 75 years of Indian films in this oil-rich nation. People of Indian origin constitute nearly 40 percent of the 1.3 million population of the country.

Indian High Commissioner Malay Mishra announced that the film festival will show several movies which were huge hits over the years. The festival will have movies in Hindi, Rajashtan, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Marathi.

The films to be shown include “Dharam”, “Kanchivaram”, “Kutty Srank”, “Gulabi Talkie”, “Dulha Mil Gaya”, “Harish Chandrachi Factory”, “Dev D”, “The White Elephant”, “Janala”, “Haat: The Weekly Bazaar” and “Little Zizou”.

The movies are sponsored by Indian government’s Directorate of Film Festivals.

The first ever Indian movie came to Trinidad and Tobago in the 1940s and since then it became an integral factor in the lives of Indian diaspora who came to Trinidad and Tobago between 1845 and 1917 from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to work on the sugar plantations.

Since the 1960s, several Indian superstars, musicians and entertainers have made this country one of their destinations enroute to the US.

(Paras Ramoutar can be contacted at paras_ramoutar@yahoo.com)