Sugar Island

New Directors Competition

Sugar Island

Sugar Island

Dominican Republic, Spain 2024 Fiction cor 91 min.

An unwanted pregnancy confronts Makenya with sudden adulthood. The teenager lives alongside her grandfather and Mother in the Batey, a Dominican- Haitian community of sugarcane workers. 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 recall the black uprisings on the island, and recover ancestral knowledge that forms a sort of anti-racist and decolonial manifesto. Makenya quickly discovers that the job does not guarantee her the freedom she had hoped for. Frustration opens the door to her dimension of social activism.

Presented in the Giornate degli Autori at the Venice International Film Festival.

Dominican Republic Spain international festivals female directors futurism activism maturing work

direction

Johanné Gómez Terrero

screenplay

Johanné Gómez Terrero

cinematography

Alván Prado

editing

Raúl Barreras

sound

Homer Mora

music

Jonay Armas, Gagá de la 30

production design

Oliver Rivas

cast

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

production

Fernando Santos Díaz

co-production

David Baute

produced by

Guasábara Cine

co-produced by

Tinglado Film

world sales

Patra Spanou Film

contact

[email protected]

indicative rating

16