United Nations International Human Rights Day
Film Screening with Director Amy Serrano
Monday, December 10
6:30 - 8:30 pm
“The Sugar Babies: The Plight of Children of Agricultural Workers in the Sugar Industry of the Dominican Republic”
While exposing those who continue to profit, this award-winning, feature-length film explores the lives of descendants of the first Africans delivered to the island of Hispaniola for the bittersweet commodity that once ruled the world. These very same people continued to be trafficked to work in sugar under circumstances that can only be considered modern day slavery.
Narrated by award-winning author Edwidge Danticat, the film examines the moral price of sugar –present and past—from the perspective of conditions surrounding the children of sugar cane cutters of Haitian ancestry in the Dominican Republic, and the continuing denial of their basic human rights. The film was shot on location in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, England and the United States. [In Spanish, French, Creole and subtitled in English—TRT 99 minutes]. Please register to attend using link at bottom of page.
Director Amy Serrano is a Cuban-American film maker, author and humanitarian. Serrano shot, produced, wrote and directed the award-winning and critically acclaimed documentary, "The Sugar Babies," for which she is most well known, but has also produced and directed several documentaries for PBS. One of the most respected female filmmakers to come from Cuba, Serrano is a women and children's rights activist. Read more about her current projects and body of work on Wikipedia
6:30 - 8:30 pm
“The Sugar Babies: The Plight of Children of Agricultural Workers in the Sugar Industry of the Dominican Republic”
While exposing those who continue to profit, this award-winning, feature-length film explores the lives of descendants of the first Africans delivered to the island of Hispaniola for the bittersweet commodity that once ruled the world. These very same people continued to be trafficked to work in sugar under circumstances that can only be considered modern day slavery.
Narrated by award-winning author Edwidge Danticat, the film examines the moral price of sugar –present and past—from the perspective of conditions surrounding the children of sugar cane cutters of Haitian ancestry in the Dominican Republic, and the continuing denial of their basic human rights. The film was shot on location in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, England and the United States. [In Spanish, French, Creole and subtitled in English—TRT 99 minutes]. Please register to attend using link at bottom of page.
Director Amy Serrano is a Cuban-American film maker, author and humanitarian. Serrano shot, produced, wrote and directed the award-winning and critically acclaimed documentary, "The Sugar Babies," for which she is most well known, but has also produced and directed several documentaries for PBS. One of the most respected female filmmakers to come from Cuba, Serrano is a women and children's rights activist. Read more about her current projects and body of work on Wikipedia
Director Amy Serrano
- Official Selection, Human Aid Film Festival of Europe
- Official Selection, Creteil Films de Femmes Festival
- Official Selection, Paris International Human Rights Film Festival
- Official Selection, Montreal International Human Rights Film Festival
- Official Selection, New Orleans Afrikan Film Festival
- Emmy Award, Human Interest Section, Sugar Babies Special, Maria Elvira Live
- Best Documentary, Delray Beach Film Festival [Jury Prize]
- Official Selection, New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival
- Official Selection, Buffalo Niagara Film Festival
- Official Selection, Women’s International Film Festival [withdrawn by filmmaker due to festival succumbing to pressure from sugar industry]
- Official Selection, Miami International Film Festival [withdrawn by festival due to influence of sugar industry]
- Official Selection, The United Nations “Through Women's Eyes” Film Festival
- Tour of France with Amnesty International
- Official Selection, Montreal International Haitian Film Festival
- Words and Music Festival
“Sugar Babies poignantly maps how the government in the D.R. is implicated in the human trafficking and exploitation of Haitian migrants by the sugar barons. The film also illuminates a global trend in which migrants from poor countries -- unable to emigrate to First World metropolises traverse borders -- by legal and illegal means to less poor ones.” - Dr. Michael Martin, film critic and editor, The Black Camera
“Sugar Babies” is a poignant, haunting film in the fine tradition of all great investigative reporting, shining a searing light on the plight of a desperately poor and disenfranchised people and those who would exploit them.”
- Ken Wells, senior editor, Conde Nast, Portfolio
“If they gave an Oscar for the muckraking documentary that most riles the world's fat cats, turning them into red-faced, sputtering stuffed shirts, Amy Serrano's film about Big Sugar would surely win hands down. The exposé film Sugar Babies, which won best documentary two weeks ago at the Delray Beach Film Festival and is having its first commercial screening this week in Fort Lauderdale, has sugar barons and their allies scurrying around the globe trying to stop people from seeing it.” - Edmund Newton, senior editor, The New Times
“I want to congratulate you on a beautiful, troubling, yet amazing film. I know you’ll continue to be a voice for the voiceless.” - Dr. Pamela Franco, Xavier University
"Documentaries don't get much better than this either in content or technical quality."
- Jan Holmes, festival director, United Nations, Through Women's Eyes International Film Festival
"The film was incredible. Thank you for sharing with us. It was enlightening and provocative as well as visually stunning!" - Maurice and Tanzanika Ruffin, attorneys, New Orleans, Louisiana
"I commend you for your conviction and the efforts you are making to inform more people like myself of the conditions on the sugar plantations in the DR. I thought you did a fabulous job as a filmmaker to create a coherent piece that flows well, educates, and without question, disturbs one's quietude." -H. Ross, Educator, Boulder, Colorado
"The subject matter is sad, it's true, but you have a really positive outlook, and the delivery (for both the film and the questions and answers session) was extremely well-executed. I particularly enjoyed the poetic cinematography. There was a sense of the heat and sun and humidity in the colors and slow moving images. All of the images of children traipsing through sugarcane will stay with me."
-Sabrina Canfield, novelist, New Orleans, Louisiana
“We sit around in our own little world not knowing what is really going on in the real world. This was a real shocker and I am glad it was so well received. The audience got to see the ongoing atrocities that still exist in the world today."
-Dr. Michael Posner, festival director, The Delray Beach Film Festival
“We are thrilled to present this important film, however, our lasting desire is for this film to spur positive change for those laboring in the sugar industry and towards the ecological impact big sugar unleashes on our State."
-Gregory Von Hausch, festival director, Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival
"It went so, so, so well! The screening was well attended. One American woman stopped by to say that she had shown The Sugar Babies to her class and that it had a transformative impact on her and her kids. The film is poignant, captivating and informative. I was worried about the length, but it is so engaging that it delivered, even to the shortest of attention spans. Very inspiring work. Well done! Thank you!
-Emily Paige, Concordia University, Art Gallery
"Sugar Babies is, in short, brilliant. An amazing, amazing documentary, from beginning to end. It is beautifully paced and filmed, and the issues profoundly important." --Diane Mason, director, HOPE Films
writer, director, cinematographer and producer AMY SERRANO / executive producer CLAUDIA CHIESI / producer THOR HALVORSSEN / co-producer CONSTANCE HAQQ / production associates SALVADOR LONGORIA TICO PUJALS / composer BILL CRUZ / narrator EDWIDGE DANTICAT/ editor JASON OCASIO/ executive music producer AMY SERRANO
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The screening is open to both women and men, held in the Great Room.
Your registration is appreciated, and helps us know how many to prepare for. Click here to register online call (985) 892-8111, or email [email protected] This screening is offered free of charge by the Director, but voluntary donations to the Women's Center are appreciated. The Women' Center is a non-profit organization which gladly accepts tax-deductible donations to further its mission. |
www.sirenfilms.us
Amy Serrano, Director, Writer + Cinematographer [786] 326.5151 [email protected] www.amyserrano.com |
