Films About Indentureship

Azaad (2025), 145mins, Director: Abhishek Kapoor. Hindi language period drama dealing with forced labour in India.

Blackbird (2016), 13 mins, Director: Amie Batalibasi. Drama about the kidnapping of Solomon Islanders to work on sugarcane plantations in Queensland, Australia.

Brown Sugar (2013), 120mins, Director: Mahadeo Shivraj. Tale of love, devotion and social injustice on a sugar plantation in Guyana.

Brown Sugar Too Bitter for Me 2 – The Oil Dream (2020), 149mins, Director: Mahadeo Shivraj. Drama of raw greed and power confronting the pathos and humanity of the poor.

Chutney in Yuh Soca: A Multicultural Mix 1996, 21 mins, Director: Karen Martinez. Arts documentary examining the phenomenon of Chutney Soca.

City on the Hill (2015), Director: Perry Polar. Film about cultural heritage in East Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Coconut/Cane and Cutlass (1998), 32 mins, Director: Michelle Mohabeer. Hybrid documentary  shot on location in Guyana, communicating a complex, lyrical and touching rumination on exile and displacement. Narrated from the point-of view of a mixed race Indo-Caribbean lesbian.

Coolie Pink and Green (2009), 25 mins, Directors: Patricia Mohammed & Michael Mooleedhar. A girl of Indo-Caribbean descent in Trinidad is torn between the ancient culture of her ancestors and the multicultural world in which is growing up.

Coolies: How Britain Re-Invented Slavery (2002), 58 mins, Producers: Michael Poole & David Olusoga. BBC Four documentary about Indian Indentureship.

Dal Puri Diaspora, (2012), 81 mins, Director: Richard Fung. Documentary about a culinary quest to discover how this spicy flat bread was born.

Des Chinois en Guyane et en Martinique and Des Guyanais et des Martiniquais en Chine (2009), 52 mins, Director : Jill Servant. Two-part documentary about Chinese indentured labourers in the Caribbean.

Doubles with Slight Pepper (2011), 16 mins, Director: Ian Harnarine. Short drama about a young street food vendor in Trinidad.

Enslaved (1999), 60 mins, Director: William G. Wagner. Drama tracing the origins of slavery from indentured servants onwards.

Festival of Lights (2010), 120 mins, Director: Shundell Prasad. Drama of girl who journeys from New York to Guyana to discover the truth about her family’s mysterious past.

Guiana 1838 (2004), 120 mins, Director: Rohib Jagessar. Drama about indentured immigrants in the Caribbean.

I, Coolie (2019), 15 mins, Director: Arnica E. Miakista. Documentary about Indian Indentured Women in South Africa.

Jahaji Bhai  (2012), 50 mins, Director: Suresh Pillai. Documentary about the journey from colonisation to Afro-Indian conflicts in Trinidad & Tobago and Guyana.

Kabali (2016), 150 mins, Director: Pa. Ranjith. Set in Malaysia amongst the Tamil indentured labourers and foregrounds the question of caste.

Kala Pani, la maledictions des eaux noires, (2004a), 52mins, Directors: Cesar, G.,  Thorabully, K. & Bauer, B. Documentary about  Indian indentureship.

Kalimaï Mariamam, la traverse des 7 mers, (2004b), 52 mins, Directors: Cesar, G.,  Thorabully, K. & Bauer, B. Documentary about  Indian indentureship.

Kavi (2009), 19 mins, Director: Gregg Helvey. Drama about a young boy whose father is indentured to a brickworks in Maharashtra.

L’immigration chinoise en Guyane et en Martinique, (2009), 109 mins, Director : J. Servant. Documentary that asks why there are Chinese in French Guiana and Martinique.

Mighter dan de Sun (2020), 37 mins, Director: Trevor C. Jugmohan.  Drama about an Indo-Caribbean couple battling mental illness and supernatural forces.

Offrande aux dieux exiles (1961), 20 mins, Director: J. Benoist. 16 millimetre documentary about Indians in Martinique.

Once More Removed (2006), 52mins, Director: Shundell Prasad. Documentary about the journey back to India.

Prisoners of Paradise (2021), 96 mins, Director: Mitch Jenkins. Period romance set in Mauritius in 1925 between English orphan Lucy and Krishna who works as a labourer on a plantation.

Pukiki: The Portuguese Americans of Hawai’i, (2003), 44 mins, Director: L. Proença. Documentary about indentured Portuguese who came to Hawaii between 1878-1913.

Queer Coolie-tudes, (2019), 87 mins, Director: Michelle Mohabeer. Documentary and queer ethnography which traces the lives of diverse subjects from the Indo-Caribbean in Canada.

Sangaree (1953), 94 mins, Director: Edward Ludwig. Period costume drama about the son of an indentured servant in the USA.

Servant or Slave (2016), 58 mins, Director: Steven McGregor. Drama about aboriginal women forced into indentured labour in Australia.

Seventeen Colours and a Sitar (2010), 38 mins, Directors: Patricia Mohammed & Michael Mooleedhar.  Documentary about collaboration between painter Rex Dixon and Trinidadian musician Mungal Pastasar.

Sugar Slaves (1995), 56 mins, Director: Trevor Graham. Documentary on ‘blackbirding’ to Queensland, Australia.

Sweet Tassa (2019), 58 mins, Director: Christopher L. Ballangee. Documentary on musical and socio-poliitical elements of tassa performance, focusing on the life and family of noted drummer Lenny Kumar.

Tanty Feminisms: Archives of Caribbean (Post-) Indenture and Coolieween, 2021, 32 mins, Director: Ryan Persadie. Reflections on the director’s artistic practice as a drag artist in an annual photography series produced over the last two years entitled ‘Coolieween’.

The Cost of Sugar (2019), 17 mins, Director: Daniyal Harris-Vajda. Documentary about Wells Estate, Guyana.

The Man from El Dorado (2018), Directors Arlen Harris & Daniyal Harris-Vajda. Documentary about Yesu Persaud, descendant of indentured labourers.

The Uprising (2019), 93 mins, Director Pravini Baboeram. Music documentary about the story of resistance against racism in the Netherlands, UK and France, featuring the story of Janey Tetary (1856-1884) of Suriname.

Wiren (2018), 105 mins, Director: Iran Tai-Apin. A small deaf boy of Indian descent leaves behind rural life in Suriname and goes to school in Paramaribo.