Caribbean Indian Actors in Cinematic Movies
Twenty-eight years after the screening of the first Hindi movie, Bala Joban [Sweet Youth] in Trinidad in the Caribbean, an immigrant law student in London made his debut in a British-made cinematic movie. Basdeo Panday became the first Caribbean Indian to be an actor on the big screen in Nine Hours to Rama (1963). Panday’s part as the laundryman in Nine Hours to Rama was brief, but it was a speaking role that earned him notable credit among stars like Horst Buchholz, José Ferrer and Valerie Gearon. The movie about the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the BAFTA Film Award in the Best British Cinematography Category in 1964.