The Bengali / Film School Radio interview with Director Kavery Kaul

In Kavery Kaul’s deeply personal documentary, THE BENGALI, Fatima Shaik embarks upon an unlikely quest when she travels from New Orleans, the city of her birth, to India, home of her grandfather Shaik Mohamed Musa. An African-American writer whose family has lived in Louisiana for four generations, she travels with Kolkata-born filmmaker Kavery Kaul to a part of India where no African-American has ever gone. Her search for the past is fraught with uncertainty, as she looks for her grandfather’s descendants, the land he claimed to own, and the truth behind the stories she grew up with. Through Fatima’s moving and inspiring personal journey, THE BENGALI, tells the untold story of ties between South Asians and African-Americans in the U.S. In the late nineteenth-century, men from India arrived in the United States and married African-American women. The men were Muslims; the women were Christian. Together, they built families in an America that held them all at arm’s length. THE BENGALI, reaches across seemingly insurmountable cultural divides to shine light on timely issues. Its boldly different story of immigration reclaims timeless themes of family. Award-winning filmmaker Kavery Kaul (Cuban Canvas, Long Way from Home) joins us for an illuminating conversation on this intriguing and little-known story of migration, trials and triumphs of mostly Bengali men who came to America searching for a better life in America For updates and screenings go to: thebengalifilm.com