Excavation

Past and present collide to dramatic effect when a group of Jamaican and American students and their lecturers begin a month-long archaeological dig on the former sugar estate Plantation Plains. They begin as strangers, each bringing their different expectations. The young white Americans look forward to getting their hands dirty in an exotic new environment, but for Carla the excavations on the sites of the Big House and the slave quarters are potent reminders that her own ancestry is both Black and White. The dig brings Rastafarian Akete closer to all that has oppressed his race and when one of the Americans starts showing too keen an interest in Carla, he feels that it is his duty to protect a sister. Tension mounts as the uncovering of the past brings to the surface quite different ways of looking at the world. For all the group there is the stark contrast between the beauty of the poetically evoked Jamaican landscape and the dark secrets lying underneath it.