MY FATHER'S LAND is an award winning feature documentary, which explores the life of Papa Jah, a humble Haitian Bushman. Papa Jah has lived in the Bahamas for 40 years, in a marginalized community called the Mud. As a strict deportation policy and growing xenophobia sweeps the country, news from Haiti arrives that his 103 three year old father has taken ill. Papa Jah risks his tentative legal immigration status, and returns to Haiti, the land he left behind, in hopes to reunite with his father; before its too late. Juxtaposed against the strikingly rich visual texture of the Caribbean, this travel adventure story entertains through humor, intimate cultural spaces and vivid landscapes, while touching on socioeconomic complexities of immigration, culture and identity.
Directors Tyler Johnston & Miquel Galofré will be in attendance to introduce the film and participate in a post-screening Q&A!
Presented with the short film:
PURGATORIO – Directed by: Martine Jean
Based on real life events. In September 2013, the Dominican Republic's top court issued a ruling that rendered stateless tens of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent. Many people still are being "deported" to Haiti where they have no relatives and no resources. Women are separated from their children, husbands from their wives, families are torn apart. "Purgatorio" is a short, fictionalized account of the plight of Rosa Jean-Louis and her daughter Soledad as they are questioned at the border then ejected to Haiti. The film touches on the inhumanity of statelessness and it echoes the cries of a land beckoning its children home.
VIEW TRAILER