Notes From A Native Daughter

Hugo Perez’s Documentary OMARA on Afro-Cuban Singer and cultural icon, Omara Portuondo is now playing in the 39th Miami Film Festival. The documentary will be streaming nationwide with in-person Miami screenings through March 13, 2022.

Toward the end of our 26-minute talk, I admit to feeling pressured to write something that does Hugo justice. In the simplest of words and from my sincere heart, this episode is a true candid talk. What a story and journey to the medium of film. So much grace across his insights, perceptiveness, and down to earth-ness. Hugo really rocks. Look out for him and do check out OMARA.

Adriana Bosch is fantastic—humble, open, present, giving, loving, sincere, and elegant. Really. She came in as an equal and a woman artist sharing her journey. 

Her latest documentary, Letters to Eloisa, is a lyrical must-watch profile dedicated to the late and great José Lezama Lima.

It airs tonight—October 15— on PBS 10-11 p.m. EST (check local listings) under the New Season of Latino Public Broadcasting’s VOCES.

She wants people to watch this film. You will not regret it. Adriana captures so much in so little time. Towards the end, my tears just flowed. She knew how to place Lezama’s letters to his sister Eloisa to reveal everything she wanted to say. I guess that’s what artistic prowess, agility, and humanity are.

Letters to Eloisa is an ode about “an obscured artist.” And yet, the film is about the larger picture—Cuban history, dissenters everywhere, artistic freedom, and the fragility of brave people. She has a lot to say about a man who lived by his word—no small feat.

I hope sometime soon, Adriana Bosch gets a retrospective. She has a lot to give and say, and we need her, todos los que somo poetas de corazón.

  

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2021 for me, has had a Cuban theme, and all I can say is that I’m grateful for it. 

Earlier this year, I helped Pedrito Martínez with his album Acertijos (Riddles), now nominated for a Latin Grammy in the Best Tropical Album category. Find his production details here and follow him on IG, because it’s full of good percussion bites, and he’s a master.

Then came We Have Iré. You can read and learn about that project here—music by Yosvany Terry with special guest Xiomara Laugart, words by Paul S. Flores. Directed by Rosalba Rolón of Pregones/PRTT in New York, We Have Iré is a multimedia theater work that portrays real-life stories of Cuban emigré artists real-life stories framed by Flores’s exploration of his roots as a Cuban-American as he traveled back to Cuba with them. Through the medium of music -- always an essential element in the Cuban story – We Have Iré relives their struggles to relocate to the US and explores the new identities they constructed in the process. 

We Have Iré was commissioned and sponsored by the National Performance Network, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) in San Francisco, Pregones/PRTT in New York City, GALA Theatre in Washington D.C., MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana in San José, MECA-Houston, Miami 

That’s all for now/

Regreso pronto—Back soon. It's been a ride this pandemic year...LOL

Sol

She’s been a part of some cool stuff, like serving as a Curatorial Assistant for Latinx Studies at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. She has worked with El Museo Del Barrio, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Loisaida Center, among other institutions. She was a 2018 Smithsonian Latino Museum Studies Fellow, a 2017 Museum Education Practicum participant at the Studio Museum in Harlem. She is an Editorial Assistant at Small Axe Journal (since 2018). She holds an MA in Latino, Caribbean, and Africana Studies from the CUNY Graduate Center and a BA in Latin American Studies and Art History from Purchase College. 

Bernardo Ruiz, is a two-time Emmy® Award-nominated documentary filmmaker and a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.