Educational Media Reviews Online

Bad Friday: Rastafari After Coral Gardens is a penetrating documentary into the world of Rastafarianism and the struggles this minority population has faced from their own independent government of Jamaica. Combining firsthand accounts and beautiful archival footage Bad Friday is a compelling film that offers insight into a very popular but unknown culture: Rastafarianism.

The film is fantastic at laying out the context of Jamaica’s political and social structure and how Rastafarians were persecuted for their beliefs before and after they were a colony of Great Britain. Using detailed first hand interviews, the documentary captures the persecutions of Rastafarians from the uprising at Coral Gardens, or better known as “Bad Friday” when “supposedly” Rastafarians were involved in setting fire to a gas station and killing a number of individuals. This led to hundreds of Rastafarians being arrested, tortured, and killed by Jamaican police. The interviews, the majority with individuals that were arrested or tortured, paint a horrific life for Rastafarians in mid 20th century Jamaica. The film also shows modern day Rastafarians and their struggle to gain reparations for their unjust treatment.

I recommend this documentary with reservations for college and general audiences. The film was well edited but some technical detail was overlooked because many of the interviewees are difficult to understand and sometimes have no subtitles to follow. The part of the documentary that describes the Coral Gardens uprising is especially difficult and I had to rewind the movie a number of times to understand what was being said. These details take away from understanding what happened in 1963 Jamaica. There are seldom interviews with policemen or government officials from that time period to show their point of view and what the official statement from Jamaica was on this incident.