Sugar Island + Hija de Florinda

Sugar Island (2024)
Dir. Johanne Gomez Terrero
91min; DCP
Spain/Dominican Republic
In Haitian Kreyòl and Spanish with English subtitles

An unwanted pregnancy triggers the journey into adulthood for Makenya, a Dominican-Haitian teenager. Forced to move back and work the sugarcane fields of Batey, she lives alongside her mother and grandfather in a community surrounded by a legacy of colonial violence, racial discrimination, displacement, and labor exploitation. Through Makenya’s eyes, Sugar Island unfolds a complex story about the intersections of ethnicity, gender, immigration, and class—echoing the lived experiences of many in the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. Gómez Terrero’s unique "kaleidoscopic aesthetic," which blends Afro-futurism, documentary realism, spiritual symbolism, and theatricality, elevates this coming-of-age drama into a visually rich, emotionally layered exploration of identity and resistance.

Preceded by
Hija de Florinda (Florinda’s Daughter) (2024)
Dir. Shenny De Los Ángeles & Amanda Morell (iiritu)
12min; DCP
US
In English and Spanish, with English and Spanish subtitles

Through a series of black-and-white tableaux, this poetry film follows the journey of Young Naomi in Everglades, Florida. She learns from Florinda, her grandmother, about the ancestral practices of caring for the land and nurturing grief in the face of environmental challenges. As the story unfolds, we grow to understand Florinda’s indigenous teachings of controlled burns and the importance of embracing fire rather than suppressing it. As the prescribed burns ignite from Florinda’s hands, an archival portal is birthed.