“RasTa A Soul’s Journey” This Film was privately screened @ FSU College of Motion Picture Arts, May21st 2015

Donisha Prendergast: A RasTa’s Journey

By Gaetscha Marcelin

Edited by Kimberley Muir

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.

How do we as a people gather our full potential? How do we become a whole and fully existing being? Especially for black people and what we know of our discriminated livelihood, how do we regain our equilibrium in a society built to put the unknowing people at lower status and to keep them there. Donisha Prendergast started with herself to answer these inquiries, understanding that inspiration finds the man working. She took to exploration her Jamaican roots, more specifically becoming considerate of her Rastafarian culture and the impacts it held for promoting Black Nationalism.

Being the oldest granddaughter of political activists and musicians Rita and Bob Marley, Prendergast’s duty to expand the ideas of her culture is an admirably self-proclaimed. Her mission was to cultivate a universal understanding the Rastafari Movement. Unsatisfied with the lone and possibly inaccurate description of Rasta as a religion, Prendergast travelled from Ethiopia to London, to Canada, to Pinnacle, Jamaica, tracing the tracks left from ancestral travelers in this same pursuit amongst many other places. This journey would be filmed and edited into a documentary, there began the making of her film “RasTa A Soul’s Journey”

The College of Motion Picture Arts assisted by Reb Braddock Dean of the School and Kimberley Muir former Assistant to the Equipment Room at FSU and Ian Weir Editing Chief; created a space in Sound Mixer A to screen Prendergast’s film to the Bachelor Students in the film program. Prendergast offered internships to a few hand selected students by interest and work shown. The internship to sojourn and work with DSE (Direct Shoot Edit ) her film company in Jamaica, is a once in a lifetime opportunity to integrate animation, editing students and writers with minds alike. One of the projects will feature animators Kiante Todd and Veronica Delgado as they animate with friends to write Donisha’s Story of the life of Pinnacle, the birth place of Rastafari and the biggest settlement of Rasta people in the Caribbean. Jessica Mote a MFA Masters of Production in Motion Picture Arts will serve as one of the advisors for the animation film coordinated by Kimberley Muir of Wise Rise Inc. The Journey will continue around the world.

Each new country travelled by Prendergast fostered a deep-rooted discovery of the lifestyle. While opening the discussion to the citizens, Prendergast also opened new dimensions to her understanding of the culture through the personal and shared experiences of the people. In Ethiopia, Prendergast shared routes of the appointed emperor Haile Selassie I in 1930. Born Tafari Makonnen Wolde mikael, and given the title Ras for his majesty, the emperor was said to have paved the Rastafari movement, his followers falling suit by tilting their lifestyle after him. In London, the words of Marcus Garvey resonated off of the lips of the local philosophers as they discussed the Pan-African movement. The Rastafarian community in Canada informed her of their ties to the collective culture, noting that it is more than just “ganja smoke” and wearing the traditional colors: red, yellow, and green. It is not a religion; it is a lifestyle representing what is natural, what is sovereign, and what is Black Nationalism.

Coming home to Jamaica was the inevitable last step of Donisha Prendergast’s journey in the film. Not only is it her home, where she reveled in the statues and murals of his majesty and her grandfather alike, it is home to the city of Pinnacle. This is origin to the first self-sustaining community from the economy of the cannabis crop. This is community was once destroyed due to the outlaw of marijuana in Jamaica. Prendergast continues to spread awareness of her efforts to restore the community and its representation in black economy by her sojourn and fundraising.

As Marcus Garvey explains, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.” A tree without roots is either a dead tree, a tree that doesn’t exist, or it is solely a figment, victim to the thinker’s preferences, succumbing to any form of identification the thinker imposes on the tree. Prendergast will not let her culture be victimized to a loss of identification, a loss of self, within the premeditated blueprints of society. Prendergast’s effort to dismantle the stereotypes of Rastafari Peoples deepens the roots of her culture, revealing the beauty of each bouquet created from the Black Nationalist movement.

If you name a place in the world Donisha has probably been there, so look out for Rasta A Soul’s Journey in a town near you.

Rasta A Soul’s Journey Will Visit Tallahassee again soon

Forward: Monday Sept 28th 2015

Location: http://new.nefetaris.com/ 812 S. Macomb St.
Tallahassee FL, 32301
(850) 210 – 0548