SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Pa­trons at­tend­ing the T&T Film Fes­ti­val's free screen­ing of the Girl From In­dia at the Di­vali Na­gar site in Ch­agua­nas got an added bonus on Sun­day night. The small but ap­pre­cia­tive crowd was treat­ed to his­tor­i­cal footage of the 1964 vis­it to T&T by In­di­ra Gand­hi, the then In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter.

Film lovers got glimpses of the land­scape of T&T when the na­tion was just two years old. The cars, the ar­chi­tec­ture, the politi­cians and the arts were com­pressed in­to a short fea­ture film pro­duced by the then Gov­ern­ment Broad­cast­ing Unit and nar­rat­ed by June Gon­salves. Girl from In­dia was a big hit on the lo­cal screens when it was re­leased in 1982. The film was pro­duced lo­cal­ly and shot in lo­ca­tions across T&T, the Unit­ed States and In­dia.

Di­rect­ed by Har­bance Ku­mar, the film is about a fa­ther who re­turns from In­dia with a wife for his son. The film ex­plores ar­eas of sex­u­al­i­ty, cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences and re­li­gious fa­nati­cism along the lines of par­al­lel plots. Pa­trons said the event was a treat but should have been ad­ver­tised some more for to en­sure wider pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion.