Filmographies - films at UST by Country: Dominican Republic

Julián finds love and a reason for living in the last place imaginable: the Dominican Republic's Najayo Prison. His romance, with fellow prisoner Yanelly, must develop through sign language and without the knowledge of dozens of guards.

Every afternoon Noeli, a young Dominican girl, goes to the beaches at Las Terrenas with her boyfriend to look for ways to make a living at the expense of one of the many tourists that wander the beach. As people parade through her life, Noeli has a steady client; a mature French woman who, as time goes by, has found an ideal refuge on the island to spend her last years. When Noeli's boyfriend feigns to be her brother, he outlines a plan in which Noeli travels to Paris with the old lady and send him money every month. For Noeli, the relationship with the old lady is one of convenience, but the feelings become more intense as the departure date closes in.

Focuses on the disintegration of a young peasant's morality once he joins the revolutionary forces of Castro's Cuba. The naive peasant was expecting adventure but before his stint in the military has ended, whether he wants to be fully aware of it or not, he is a trained killer. When he falls in love with a chorus girl in Havana, Guaguasi turns to drugs and alcohol. His decline accelerates, putting both his lover and his friends at the mercy of his slipping hold on stability.

An idealistic young woman falls for a rebel leader and takes on a murderous dictator. Today, November 25 is observed in many Latin American countries as the International Day Against Violence Towards Women. This is based on the story of the Mirabal sisters, whose deaths became the final blow to the regime of Leonidas Trujillo, who was assassinated six months later.

Urania Cabral returns to Santo Domingo after 30 years to face the past -- the horrifying circumstances that altered her life forever when she was a teenager and Rafael Leónidas Trujilla was the brutal dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic.

Based on true events in the Dominican Republic, this film tells the story of the personal struggle of one brave cop who revolts against his country's unscrupulous government. He risks everything in order to find justice and avenge his father's death. A story of redemption in the midst of inhumane brutality and political corruption.

Relates the story of Balbuena, a Dominican immigrant to New York, and his daily struggles in a strange land, devoid of the comforts of his native customs, language and culture.

In Santiago, best friends Oliver, Moises and Hemingway prepare for a ritual known to middle-class teenagers around the world--one last carefree summer road trip, just before college, when the first steps into adulthood will begin and everything they know will change. The boys map a route from Montecristi in the north to points east, with an eventual destination of Pedernales in the south, where Oliver's high school girlfriend Veronica is staying with her grandmother, until she leaves to study in New York in the fall. Along the way, the car breaks down frequently, leaving the three boys stranded with nearly every character under the Dominican sun.

This is the story of three brave women; Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa, they were known as the Mirabal Sisters, born into a privileged family in the fields of Salcedo. At that time, the Dominican Republic was under the sway of the dictator, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1930. This is the story of how Minerva and her sisters dared to defy the mad dictator and his ruthless government, alongside some allies and family members as well. But this act of bravery and courage leads to tragic consequences, but an inspiration for the people.

Focuses on American military intervention in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Chile, and El Salvador. Discusses the roots of dictatorship, its effects on citizens, movements toward majority rule, and communist influences.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. travels to Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico and Peru to discover the African influence on Latin America. He examines the shared legacy of colonialism and slavery in a region that imported ten times as many slaves as the United States, and kept them in bondage far longer. Gates finds that the influence of people of African descent has had a massive influence on the history and culture of Latin America and the Caribbean, despite sometimes being forgotten or ignored.

This documentary presents the resistance by Afro-Dominican cultural manifestations in the face of poverty and denial, giving particular attention to the role of Black women in these communities. The film includes interviews with intellectuals, artists and residents of the community of Villa Mella who explore the issue of race and identity in the Dominican Republic, from its origins to the present day. In collaboration with the production of the film was the Brotherhood of the Congos of the Holy Spirit, who were declared oral patrimony for the humanity by the UNESCO in 2001, and a group of young women who learned how to use cameras and do interviews. Their contribution to community research and documentation of an Afro-Latina/o culture are part of the final product of this film.

The New Americans follows four years in the lives of a diverse group of contemporary immigrants and refugees as they journey to start new lives in America. We follow an Indian couple to Silicon Valley through the dot-com boom and bust. A Mexican meatpacker struggles to reunite his family in rural Kansas. Two families of Nigerian refugees (including the sister of slain Ogoni activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa) escape government persecution. Two Los Angeles Dodgers prospects follow their big dreams of escaping the barrios of the Dominican Republic. A Palestinian woman who marries into a new life in Chicago only to discover in the wake of September 11, she cannot leave behind the pain of her homeland's conflict.

The Sugar Babies examines the moral price of sugar--present and past--from the perspective of the conditions surrounding the children of sugar cane cutters of Haitian ancestry in the Dominican Republic, and the continuing denial of their basic human rights. While exposing those who profit from human trafficking and exploitation, the feature length documentary film, The Sugar Babies: The Plight of the Children of Agricultural Workers in the Sugar Industry of the Dominican Republic, vividly explores the lives of those who live in circumstances that can only be considered modern day slavery. Composed of gripping field testimonies and hidden camera footage obtained during 18 months of documentation, the film also features interviews with Haiti's Ambassador to the United States, Ambassador Raymond Joseph, the U.S. Department of States' Ambassador John Miller from the Office of Human Trafficking, renowned anthropologist and sugar historian Sidney Mintz, Carol Pier from Human Rights Watch, Public Interest Attorneys Bill Quigley as well as Greg Schell, and a number of activists from the field including human rights lawyer Noemi Mendez, Colette Lespinase of G.A.R.R. Haiti (Organization for Refugees and the Repatriated) and missionaries Pierre Ruquoy and Father Christopher Hartley.