Film

The Forgotten Faces of Jamaica – A Documentary on Minority Groups in Jamaica

Here’s a trailer on a documentary by David Ritter that examines the minority groups of Jamaica from a contemporary and historic outlook.

David Ritter is a film maker, adventurer, lover of music and art, and the director and creator of the ‘Forgotten Faces’ series.

‘Forgotten Faces’ is a video documentary project that raises awareness of and celebrates the minority ethnic groups of the West Indies.

Here’s what Mr. Ritter has to say about ‘Forgotten Faces’,

“Many people are unaware of the existence of populations of Jamaicans and Haitians of white European, Chinese, East Indian, and Middle Eastern descent, living in Jamaica and Haiti.

These ethnic groups are diminishing in the West Indies, but have played very important roles in the history of these countries and their culture.

People interviewed are from diverse backgrounds, including: celebrity, middle class, those with political goals, those who wish to affect their country in massive ways, and those who simply want to live their lives in the country they love.

General reactions to white Jamaicans and white Haitians range from amazement to shock and disbelief, and, even to hostility. These reactions are followed by questions: Who are these people? How did they get here? What is their “story”? How do other Jamaicans and Haitians feel about them? Forgotten Faces addresses these questions.

Some of these minority groups have experienced racism and discrimination from both their governments and the general populace.

Many of these incidents have gone unreported and have, in some cases, been remembered in the history books of Jamaica, Haiti, and the United States.

These people have a story to tell about their hardships and about their accomplishments.”

Donations to help support this project and more projects aiming to provide education to the world about social issues within the West Indies can be sent to www.fracturedatlas.org.

For more info pls. contact Mr. Ritter at djjazzydave@juno.com and check out their website forgottenfaces.info

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4 Comments

  1. Anonymous
    June 16, 2014 at 5:28 pm — Reply

    I’m a Jamaican German. I am very familiar with Seaford town as I have family from there as well as St. Elizabeth and St. Ann. This film trailer looks normal but the film itself is a racist depiction of the town and the townspeople. It follows two mentally disturbed individuals and a couple extremely down and out people and calls this Seaford Town–a town where blacks are hated by Germans and Germans hate blacks when in actuality, the last time I checked, almost all Jamaican Germans have a very mixed heritage now. When I go, they all seem similar to me– German, African, Jamaican, Syrian, Irish, Scottish heritage. Also, the film maker shows a storyline in the trailer of understanding a lost heritage but abandoned the storyline in the movie essentially creating a home video in the end instead of a meaningful documentary. He was rightfully admonished at his last movie screening where he declared that black Jamaicans were racist against the poor German population–which is not only a lie as Jamaican’s are proud to be “Out of many one people” . I invited my Jamaican German family who was from Seaford Town. 7 of us came. We all were insulted and we all walked out while the audience tried to talk sense into the director. It was a sad day.

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  3. Julian Cresser
    July 14, 2011 at 7:41 am — Reply

    Hard to judge the whole documentary off of the trailer, but this looks like it may be a skewed and misleading documentary. Even the choice of the word ‘minority’ to describe them is quite controversial. He seems to suggest that beyond being numerical minorities that they are oppressed groups – which is far from the truth. I also hope that he addresses the inaccuracies in what is said by his interviewees.

  4. June 16, 2011 at 9:27 pm — Reply

    wow – this looks SO interesting. quite an important work too as so few acknowledge not only the existence of all the ethnic groups in the West Indies but also so many of the simplest influences that we take for granted – like our unusual and frankly GORgeous ethnic diversity, our speech patterns/accents, cultural practices, crafts, and the food!

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