SUGAR ISLAND by Johanné Gómez Terrero

Trailer   Pressbook

Makenya leaves behind fun and dancing with her friends in search for 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.
The Mother is a servant of the Mysterious within the 21 divisions of Afro-Dominican spirituality, and the 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 and 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.
Makenya manages to work at the town fair selling cotton candy, but quickly discovers that the job does not guarantee her the freedom she had hoped for, leading to a certain loss of innocence. 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 Mysterious through her mother. She finds her power.

Venice - Giornate degli Autori (comp.)

Cast

Yelidá Díaz - Makenya / Ruth Emeterio - Filomena / Juan María Almonte - Grandfather / Génesis Piñeyro - Yelidá / Diógenes Medina - Leroi

Crew

Director, Writer: Johanné Gómez Terrero / Cinematorgrapher: Alván Prado / Editor:Raúl Barreras / Sound: Homer Mora / Music:Jonay Armas, Gagá de la 30 / Production Design: Oliver Rivas / Costumes: Palma Ruiz / Producer: Fernando Santos Díaz (Guasábara Cine)  / Co-Producer: David Baute (Tinglado Film) / Production Company: Guasábara Cine

Technical information
Original Title: SUGAR ISLAND / shot in Arri Raw/ available for screenings in DCP (24fps) / color / 1.33:1 / 91 min / Dolby 5.1 / original language: Spanish with English, Italian subtitles / Dominican Republic, Spain 2024