Sugar Island

Makenya leaves behind fun and dancing with her friends in search of work; an unwanted pregnancy confronts her with sudden adulthood. The teenager lives alongside her grandfather and mother in the Batey, a Dominican-Haitian community of sugarcane workers. Her mother is a servant of the Mysteries within the 21 Divisions of Afro-Dominican spirituality, and her grandfather is an activist for pension rights. The mechanization of the sugar industry threatens to displace them without compensation. The family resists the change. Makenya reunites with her friends in a parallel, Afro-futuristic dimension. In a theatrical exercise, they read documents from the colonial era, recall the black uprisings on the island, and recover ancestral knowledge that forms a sort of anti-racist and decolonial manifesto. Frustration opens the door to her dimension of social activism; she accompanies her grandfather to protests demanding justice for the cane workers and later receives guidance from the Mysteries through her mother. At last, she finds her power.

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Direction: Johanné Gómez Terrero

Script: Johanné Gómez Terrero

Cinematography: Alván Prado

Editing: Raúl Barreras

Sound: Homer Mora

Music: Jonay Armas, Gagá de la 30

Actors: Yelidá Díaz, Juan María Almonte, Ruth Emeterio, Génesis Piñeyro, Diógenes Medina

Production: Guasábara Cine

Producers: Fernando Santos Díaz

Co-production: Tinglado Film

Co-producers: David Baute

Costumes: Palma Ruiz

Format: DCP

Color: Color

Production Country: Dominican Republic, Spain

Duration: 91'

Contact: Patra Spanou Film