Third Horizon Film Festival takes on displacement and gentrification through movies
Since its inception in 2016, the Third Horizon Film Festival has brought attention to timely issues affecting the Caribbean diaspora — immigration, climate change, sovereignty, identity — using the most accessible and popular art form of all: movies.
It’s fitting, then, that for the fourth edition of the festival, which runs Feb. 6-9, the most recurring themes in the 39 feature-length and short films are displacement and gentrification.
“I travel outside of Miami often, and it feels like the gentrification that’s happening here is something people outside the city are paying more attention to than we are,” said Jason Fitzroy Jeffers, co-founder of the event, which made Moviemaker magazine’s annual list of “The 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World” in 2019.
“We let gentrification happen like it was business as usual, and it’s the darker and poor people who continually suffer the most,” he said. “And it’s not only happening in Miami. It’s also happening in Brooklyn and Oakland and Notting Hill. But they always tend to be Caribbean communities. We’ve reached the point where we have to take a real stand against people coming into our neighborhoods and telling us we don’t belong there.”
Among the selections of this year’s festival, most of which will be screened at the Little Haiti Cultural Center, 212 NE 59th Terrace:
▪ ”A Radical Empathy: Esery Mondesir’s Haitian Trilogy,” three documentaries exploring Haitian communities in Cuba and Mexico. Screens at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6.
▪ ”De Lo Mio,” a drama about two sisters raised in New York City who travel to the Dominican Republic to clean out their late father’s childhood home. Screens at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7.
.jpg "Still from _Chèche Lavi_ - Directed by Sam Ellison (2019).jpg")
▪ ”Chèche Lavi,” a documentary about two Haitian migrants stranded at the U.S.-Mexico border. Screens at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 8.
▪ ”Zombi Child,” the story of a Haitian girl who shares an old family secret to her classmates at a prestigious boarding school in Paris. Screens at 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 9.
▪ ”Inna De Yard,” a joyous documentary about a group of legendary reggae musicians (including Ken Boothe, Cedric Myton and Judy Mowatt) trying to hand off their legacy to younger generations. Plays at 8 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 9.
.JPG "Still from _Inna De Yard_ - Directed by Peter Webber (2019).JPG")
The festival’s biggest coup is a screening of “Wendy,” a reimagining of “Peter Pan” filmed in the islands of Montserrat and Antigua, directed by Benh Zeitlin (“Beasts of the Southern Wild”). The movie screens at 10 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7, at the Tower Theater, 1508 SW Eighth St.
The Third Horizon Film Festival went through a huge growth spurt in 2019, with a pop-up mini-festival at the University of South California’s School of Cinematic Arts and a full-on festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in conjunction with the Caribbean Arts Academy.
“This year’s hashtag we are using for this year’s festival is #NoPlaceLikeHome,” said Jeffers, who projects festival attendance this year to reach between 2,500 and 3,000 people. “Whether it’s gentrification in Little Haiti or hurricanes in Puerto Rico, we’re confronting the fact that we are people who are always on the move. Hopefully, in the spirit of community, we can inspire people to take action, look out for their neighbors and look out for each other.”
The 2020 Third Horizon Film Festival runs Feb. 6-9 at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex and Tower Theatre. Tickets for individual screenings are $13. A festival pass runs $150. For a complete schedule of events, click here or email info@thirdhorizonmedia.com
.jpg "Still from _De Lo Mio_ by Diana Peralta (2019).jpg")
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 12:47 PM.
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