In the five films in History Is Written at Night, historical narratives of the marginalized are rescued from often oppressive, and amnesia-inducing hegemonic systems of rule, from Cuba to Brazil, Mauritius to the Dominican Republic.
A Q&A with Ricardo Ariel Toribio will follow the screening.
2705 SW 3rd Street, Miami, FL 33135
Dir. Rodrigo Ribeiro-Andrade/ 16 minutes / 2022 / Brasil
In a dreamlike Afro-diasporic odyssey, landscapes and alleys meet at the crossroads of time. Solmatalua (which in Portuguese means both “sunforestmoon” as “sunkillmoon”) travels a dizzying itinerary through ancestral and contemporary territories, carrying out a mystical journey that rescue memories and search possible futures.
Dirs. Lucía Malandro, Daniel D. Saucedo / 6 minutes / 2022 / Cuba, Uruguay
Example #35 is based on images discovered in Cuba’s judicial archives, which hold the island’s most jealously guarded secret: an alternative history in which the nonconformists, the misfits, and the dissidents dwell. “With mud, bricks are made. With linen, sheets are made. With grain, bread is made. With grapes, wine is made. But with man, what is made?”
Dir. Caroline Déodat/ 16 minutes / 2023 / Mauritius, France
Under the Sky of Fetishes responds to the complexity of colonial archives. It reinvents the specters of a haunting gaze to tell the story of Mauritian sega—a cultural practice born during colonization and slavery, now mainly seen in tourism. How do we project, literally bring out of ourselves, the narrative of the oppressor? Mixing fiction and ethnography, the film sanctifies the power of the projection as a mental as well as intimate enigma to release ghostly and alienated bodies, including our own.
Dir. Ricardo Ariel Toribio / 18 minutes / 2022 / Dominican Republic
Tormented by bloody events, a gavillero—a member of the guerilla movement that fought against the occupation of the Dominican Republic by the United States between 1917 and 1922—goes on the run in search of his freedom.
Dir. Alejandro Alonso / 20 minutes / 2024 / Cuba, France
“A huge blackout has plunged Cuba into darkness. In the streets, the inhabitants try to escape the gloom while the bonfires seem to announce the end of an era. Taking refuge inside our house, my mother tells me about a vision that has been tormenting her for years.” – Alejandro Alonso
