Mutabaruka Movies
Music fans curious to learn more about contemporary Rastafarian culture need look no further than this documentary featuring concert footage and behind-the-scenes interviews of such iconic reggae stars as Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, as well as such ambitious newcomers as Beenie Man, Luciano, Elephant Man, and Half Pint. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ascento Fox, Barry Chevannes, (more)
In 1962, Jamaica won its independence from the United Kingdom, and the island nation, which had long struggled with poverty, attempted to use its agricultural resources in order to create a sound economic base. As Jamaica's financial problems grew more severe with time, prime minister Michael Manley struck a deal in 1977 with a consortium of economic institutions through the International Monetary Fund, who would loan money to the nation in exchange for removal of trade restrictions and subsidized exports. Twenty-five years later, most Jamaicans would agree that the deal drove a stake through the island's agricultural and industrial economy; imports from America have ruined the island's dairy industry, interference from growers and merchants in the United States and Latin America have effectively ended the growing of onions, bananas, carrots, and potatoes as cash crops, the value of the Jamaican dollar has plummeted, and the island is now seven billion dollars in debt to the IMF, with interest driving that figure higher each day. Filmmaker Stephanie Black examines the sad state of Jamaica's economy in the face of "free trade" in the global economy in the documentary Life + Debt, which includes interviews with Michael Manley and IMF director Stanley Fischer; the Jamaica Kincaid novel A Small Place provides some of the text for the film's narration. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jamaica Kincaid
- 1993
While visiting an old fortress from the slave-trade era in Ghana, Mona (Oyafunmike Ogunlano) encounters a colorful local character, an elderly mystic going by the name of Sankofa. Mona is a black American model visiting the country for a photo-session. The old man claims to be in contact with spirits, and she is intrigued by this. When she goes to visit him, she suddenly finds herself back in the old slavery days, a slave herself who is captured and shipped to a sugar planation in the American south. There, she has various relationships and adventures in the build-up to participating in a slave revolt. Just as that is getting fully underway, she finds herself back in the present, deeply affected by what has gone before. The old mystic's name is a word in the Akan language which has the complex meaning of "going to the past, remembering it, and with it, turning to the future." ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
An "H-2 worker" is a foreigner who is issued a temporary (6 month) entrance permit in order to do farm labor. This documentary explores the situation these workers find themselves both in Florida, where they do their work (and have their wages skimmed by their greedy employers, who get a government subsidy just to employ them) and in their native Jamaica, where poverty is deep and widespread. While it is attractive, the thick Jamaican accent of some of the interviewed workers is frequently difficult to understand. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
In this documentary on the Rastafarians in Jamaica (homeland of the Rastafari par excellence -- the late Bob Marley), director Alan Greenberg interviews some Jamaicans whose conversations suggest that the smoking of ganja, the worship of Haile Selassie (the former Ethiopian emperor) as a god, and the goal of Jamaican self-realization is their own kind of unified field theory. A young, poverty-stricken teenager listens to the reggae music on his radio as though it will magically lead him to a better future, and a pineapple cutter living in the "baddest" area of the island dreams of fomenting tourism in his exotic surroundings. The May, 1981 funeral of Marley himself brought Christian and Rastafarian beliefs together in tribute to the island's hero, providing one of the most poignant vignettes in the Land of Look Behind. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gregory Isaacs, Mutabaruka, (more)
