What Does Afro-Latinidad Mean in the Film World?

Loren Escandon: My mother was abandoned as a toddler and grew up under the abuse of what we call a criollo family. She was always the maid, but never got paid. So that's pretty much just slavery. Knowing that story, for me, was very normal. It was something that we would talk about, but when I moved to America, and the whole idea of slavery was washed out in so many ways. I thought, well, I have this firsthand encounter, right? I know the story, it belongs to me, to my family, to my ancestors. So I'm just going to try to tell a story about [slavery]. And that is Los Patines. I decided to tell it from the point of view of a child because it just makes it a little bit less tragic, in a way, because it's her point of view. And from her point of view, that's not who she is. At the same time, I want to give people this idea that it is a cycle that can be broken, if you are aware enough.

Growing up biracial—my father was white and my mother was black—I had an unconscious awareness of my darkness. I saw how my mom was treated very differently than my father within society. Colombia is as racist as other countries can be. We think that we are Spaniards and that we're white. I feel like the afrodescendants and Black people are just now awakening to the idea that they have to claim their space in society. Since I'm very immersed in American culture, I can see how behind we are in Colombia with our own process, which is extremely painful. That's one of the reasons I have decided not just as an actress, but as a filmmaker, to start telling the stories of black Latinas, because in a way, society has not just denied us a space, it's like we do not exist. We do not exist in storytelling, television, or film. So we need to start claiming our space and telling our own stories and forcing our way around because they're not gonna give it to us.

Monica Moore-Suriyage: Being affirmed in who you are is definitely a big theme for this film, La Ciguapa Siempre. Growing up, I was always confused about where I fit in. One culture being Asian, one culture being Dominican, Caribbean Black. Then also growing up with almost all white people. It's just like, who am I? Where do I fit? That's been a theme of a lot of my work because that's what I'm trying to figure out about myself. Even the person who is supposed to love me may not understand or is trying very hard to understand. That's something else I've experienced.

In the end, when [La Ciguapa] meets all these women who look just like her and were waiting for her. This is her family, where she belongs. Maybe in real life, it's not always so literal. But I do think you can find or create your own communities. You can seek people out who have similar life experiences and bond that way. So it was very liberating for me. We made this story where someone figures out where they're supposed to be. Maybe some people see that as a monster. But people in the community know what it's really about.

Shenny De Los Angeles: I think what was affirmed for me in the process was the power of forgiveness and the understanding that the women that came before you may pass down something that can be deemed as a generational curse. I know for me, my mother and my grandmother survived to give me the sense of liberation. There was one moment in The Ritual to Beauty where my mom said something that took me by surprise. She says, “It's too late for me, but thank God, my daughter found it early.” I think that what I can affirm or honor in that moment is that my mom is a representation of a lot of mothers who may be seeing their young children walking around with afros. Maybe they don't quite feel that they're ready or prepared or able to embody it. But the fact that we're doing it and claiming our blackness and celebrating and finding our joy in that, there is something that even if my mom can’t apply it to herself, she feels the freedom in me.

Christina Rodriguez: One of the things that drove me to focus on an immigrant story for Fuego is just the current climate towards immigration in Quebec. Manolo is a janitor and he is, in fact, judged in the film. But then all of a sudden, you see him singing and he's this amazing performer. The artist who wrote the song is from Cuba. He lives in Canada, and he's been here for many, many years: Giovanni Arteaga Valdez. It’s a song about overcoming your struggles, really a song of hope. People leave their country of origin to help their family back home. Manolo is doing this for his family back in Cuba. So there's that sense of affirmation. I feel like people come to Quebec, and they offer so much to society.

At the same time, I wanted to show that it's not all fun. There is a struggle for people who are new to this country, and finally, I wanted to have representation. So it was great to have Danny, the actor who plays Manolo. He's a great actor, lots of experience, and he's a great singer. So he's the ideal person to play the character of Manolo, although he's more Afro-Colombian. His dad was born in Cuba, so it's complicated, but he's more Afro-Colombian, than Afro-Cuban. But we got Giovanni and then he brought in these Cuban musicians to perform in the film. He had Cuban musicians who performed in the recording of the song. So it's also recognition for them to be seen in Montreal as a community that's there, that's thriving. And that people may not often think about.