The attempts to build a Guyanese film industry continue. The latest contribution in this long-running saga is the new film A Jasmine for A Gardener directed by Mahadeo Shivraj and released in Georgetown last week. This is the second film produced by the combined efforts of Shivraj and Neaz Subhan to create works for the cinema in Guyana, following up on their screen version of Ronald Hollingsworth’s Till Ah Find a Place.
It is a serious attempt. For its courageous intentions, willingness to take risks and perseverance in a very worthy cause it can bear historical reference to good films made that have some degree of relevance to Guyanese works. Of course, the timeless classic of them all is that produced at the very highest level, the Hollywood hit made from the novel To Sir With Love by Guyanese ER Braithwaite. The British/Indian company Merchant Ivory and the BBC have also filmed such works as The Mystic Masseur by VS Naipaul, Ian McDonald’s The Humming Bird Tree, and Jeanette Allfrey’s The Orchid House. There are therefore high international achievement and models to serve as inspiration.
Jasmine is good enough to be accepted among the more worthy films that are fully Guyanese. For the quality of acting it does not match the memorable leading performances by Mahadeo Shivraj and Sonia Yarde in Till Ah Find A Place, but it is an improvement in technical camera quality and big screen techniques in cinematography, which
