Johanné Gómez Terrero is an Afro-diasporic artist who positions her work within a Caribbean and decolonial framework. The short documentary Caribbean Fantasy (2016) sparked her career as a filmmaker. She is also involved as a producer and consultant in various development labs. Johanné is a graduate, teacher, and chair coordinator at EICTV Cuba, and holds a Master’s Degree from ESAC in Spain.
Makenya leaves behind fun and dancing with her friends in search for work, after 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 Mysteries 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. Meanwhile, in a parallel and Afro-futuristic dimension, Makenya reunites with her friends. 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. Photo by Dilia Oviedo.
A Q+A with Johanné Gómez Terrero will follow the screening.
