Image courtesy of Caribbean Eye
From October 15-29, University of Cincinnati film professor Mary Leonard will curate three films from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic as part of FotoFocus’ Caribbean Eye series at the Woodward Theater. Besides the films, she will also host a couple of the filmmakers, actors, screenwriters, and producers during the day at UC and Northern Kentucky University.
Leonard grew up in New York but lived in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, for 30 years before moving to Northern Kentucky four years ago. At the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez, she founded Film Certificate, the university’s film program.
“I know a lot of people who do film in the Caribbean, and I’ve gone on to do a lot of other projects that tend to be in the Caribbean,” Leonard said. “But then I moved here and I’m like, ‘Well, what do I know about?’ It’s something I know about that perhaps people around here don’t know as much about.”
In 2022, she submitted a proposal to FotoFocus for the biennial theme of World Record. Her film series was based around hurricanes from a Caribbean perspective. But because of the pandemic, she hosted the filmmakers over Zoom. This year, FotoFocus’ theme is Backstories.
“I think their idea was stories we haven’t heard or things we don’t really know everything about them,” she said. “I thought, well, yep, certainly I think that works well with stories I haven’t heard from the Caribbean. The title of the series is Caribbean Eye. It is about people from the Caribbean telling their own stories. It’s not somebody from outside going to the Caribbean and making a film. It’s people telling it from the inside, from their perspective.”
Image courtesy of Caribbean Eye
She’s bringing in filmmakers like Gustavo Ramos-Perales, director of the 2023 film Feet in the Sand (Pies en al Arena), who’s a part of New Puerto Rican Cinema. These films, which have been made in the past decade or so, explore the reality of living in the Caribbean, not just silly comedies or films that purport the idea that the Caribbean is an ideal vacation spot.
“We have economic crises and we have hurricanes,” Leonard said. “We have things happening politically, a lot of things that people don’t always follow that much. I don’t think it’s right to present the Caribbean either as a place you only hear about on CNN when there’s a disaster. It’s not only that, but it’s also not the kind of a place where you sort of lounge in a lawn chair and sip a tropical drink. Some people are making nice, pleasant, and entertaining films, but some people are digging into the reality of people’s lives.”
Image courtesy of Caribbean Eye
Feet in the Sand is a story about two immigrants. Rafaela, directed by Tito Rodriguez, is about a transgender girl, and Carmen Oquendo’s All The Flowers (Todas Las Flores) documentary features trans people in the neighborhood of Santafé in Bogotá, Colombia.
Leonard said filmmakers in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic have better access to funding and resources than they did years ago. The writing and acting has improved, too. Some filmmakers go to film school in other countries and come back to the Caribbean to make their films. In 2010, the Dominican government established a film commission to support filmmakers.
Image courtesy of Caribbean Eye
“I’ve been amazed at the artists in Puerto Rico,” she said. “I think there’s a fantastic visual. There tended to be a lot of sunlight and a lot of concrete. They felt very urban. They felt like everything was open. And then I noticed in some of the films that started to be filmed afterwards, they went to places that were dark, as if they were exploring corners that hadn’t been explored there, that started to talk about things like sexual abuse, poverty, and about illegal immigration. They started to look at those things seriously. But they also had a cinematography that made the films beautiful to look at.”
Leonard is one of many film curators in town, and she’s helping to diversify the film community here. “I like diverse film culture where you go, ‘Oh, what’s this? I don’t know what this is,’” she said. “I want to continue programming films that people perhaps haven’t seen. I want to put my own spin on it. I want to continue having conversations with people. I want to continue to write about film and the arts and trying to unpack these things, and have interesting ways of thinking about them that are not what people talk about every day.”
Caribbean Eye takes place October 15-29. Get tickets here.
Facebook Comments