Wan Pipel (1976)
Pim de la Parra, Suriname
Having grown up in Guyana, near Suriname, it was an exciting and wistful experience to watch this film set in our corner of the world. It tells the story of a black Surinamese man, who leaves his Dutch girlfriend to return home when he learns his mother is dying. Back in Suriname, he falls in love with a Hindu woman at a time when the Hindu and Black communities are in conflict, and refuses to return to the “motherland.” Visually, the film looks and feels like a 1970s Black American hippie movie, set in the Caribbean – everything to everyone.