As we face an election year, it is heartening to note that there are places in the world where women are making their voices heard. In a story that sounds too strange to be true, the documentary, "Thunder in Guyana," chronicles the life of one such woman who became the President of Guyana. What makes her story even more extraordinary is that the woman is American, from a Jewish family, and in her seventies when she is elected by the popular vote.

"Thunder in Guyana" tells the remarkable story of Janet Rosenberg Jagan, who meets her Guyana-born husband, Cheddi Jagan, in Chicago while she is studying for a nursing degree, and he is in dental school. The son of East Indian indentured sugar plantation workers, Cheddi Jagan is intelligent, strikingly handsome, and committed to radical Marxist politics. Janet Rosenberg is clearly a kindred spirit, and when the two marry, they do so at the peril of ostracizing her family, possibly forever. But their love and shared politics forge a bond that cannot be broken. Soon after their wedding, they are on their way to Guyana to help organize the People's Progressive Party, whose primary goal is the creation of a free, independent Guyana. The struggles that ensue between the Jagans and the British and American governments will seem familiar to those who know the history of Chile, among others. Yet it stands alone because of the singularity of the Jagan family - their relationship to the people of Guyana, to America, and to each other.

The film is narrated and directed by Suzanne Wasserman, who is Janet Rosenberg Jagan's cousin. Wasserman makes no secret of the fact that her view of Janet is highly personalized, and that perspective comes through in the voiceovers and cinematography. This is not an unbiased view of a political movement and its successes and failures; it is a unique film that asks us to reconsider our place in society, and what we might accomplish if we were likewise driven and inspired. In "Thunder in Guyana," Janet Rosenberg Jagan provides us with some of that inspiration.

Carol Varney is a fan of film, especially documentaries, and has volunteered for the Red Vic Movie House and the San Francisco International Film Festival.

2004 MJFF Program Book edited by Abby Zimet