Culture of Guyana - Film

Film

Guiana 1838, a film by Guyanese-born director Rohit Jagessar that depicts the arrival of indentured Indian servants to the Caribbean in 1838 following the 1834 abolition of slavery in the British Empire, was released in 2004.

The story of the cinema in Guyana goes back to the 1920s when the Gaiety, probably British Guiana's first cinema, stood by the Brick dam Roman Catholic Presbytery in Georgetown, and showed Charlie Chaplin-type silent movies. After the Gaiety burnt down around 1926, other cinemas followed, such as the Metro on Middle Street in Georgetown, which became the Empire; the London on Camp Street, which became the Plaza; and the Astor on Church and Waterloo Streets, which opened around 1940.

The Capitol on La Penitence Street in Albouystown had a rough reputation. The Metro pole was on Robb and Wellington Streets; the Rial to, which became the Rio, on Vlissengen Road; the Hollywood was in Kitty; and the Strand De Luxe on Wellington Street, was considered the luxury showplace.

Cinema seating was distinctly divided. Closest to the screen, with rows of hard wooden benches, was the lowly Pit, where the effort of looking upwards at the screen for several hours gave one a permanent stiff neck. The next section, House, was separated from the Pit by a low partition wall. House usually had individual but connected wooden rows of seats that flipped up or down. Above House was the Box section, with soft, private seats and, behind Box, Balcony, a favorite place for dating couples. These divisions in the cinema roughly represented the different strata existing in colonial society.