Jurakán, A Film Series: Landfall

Landfall is the first film of the film series Jurakán, curated and hosted by film professor Mary Leonard. Jurakán is part of the programming of the Fotofocus Biennial.

Free for Fotofocus Passport Holders

The Film:

While the devastation of Hurricane María attracted a great deal of media coverage, the world has paid far less attention to the storm that preceded it: a 72-billion-dollar debt crisis crippling Puerto Rico well before the winds and waters hit. Landfall examines the kinship of these two storms — one environmental, the other economic—juxtaposing competing utopian visions of recovery.

The Series:

Jurakán is the name given by the Tainos, the indigenous people of the Caribbean, to the god of chaos and discord who controls the often turbulent weather that affects the region. The images and narratives that predominate about the Caribbean today often evoke images of  the sun, but representations of wind and water recur in Taino imagery more than those of the sun, and remain part of the imaginary of the people who live in the region. The word hurricane, derived from Jurakán, refers to storms that originate in the Caribbean, unlike other words, like cyclone or monsoon, that describe storms with turbulent winds in other parts of the world. This series explores what hurricanes are, their mythological and metaphorical associations, what it is like to experience them sensorially; factual, scientific and practical information about them; as well as artistic/poetic representations of hurricanes in cultural context. It looks at how they signify and how everything that they mean resonates in Caribbean societies in multifarious ways. It will consist of four presentations. In each, there will be a conversation and question and answer session with the audience following the film in which the ideas described above will be explored.

The Director:

Cecilia Aldarondo is a documentary director-producer from the Puerto Rican diaspora who works at the intersection of poetics and politics. Her feature documentarie Memories of a Penitent Heart (2016) and Landfall (2020) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and were co-produced by the award-winning PBS series POV. Landfall \\\’s many awards include the 2020 DOC NYC Film Festival Viewfinders Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary, as well as Cinema Eye and Film Independent Spirit Award nominations. Among Aldarondo\\\’s fellowships and honors are the Guggenheim, a two-time MacDowell Colony Fellowship, the 2021 New America Fellowship, and Women at Sundance 2017. In 2019 she was named to DOC NYC\\\’s 40 Under 40 list and is one of 2015’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. She teaches at Williams College. Currently, Cecilia is in production on a new film for HBO.

The Producer:

Lale Namerrow Pastor is a Puerto Rican activist, DJ, and facilitator who integrates political art and organizing to collaborate with social justice organizations in Puerto Rico. Born and raised in San Juan, Namerrow attended New York Film Academy in 2012 and has a BFA in Photography from the University of Puerto Rico.

The Curator and Host:

Mary Leonard is full professor in the English Department of the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez Campus where she teaches courses in film, media and literature. She is also the founder and director of the university’s film program, the UPRM Film Certificate. She has presented her work at conferences in many countries, published articles in peer-reviewed journals as well as in local publications in Puerto Rico, been invited to lecture and present Puerto Rican films at universities in the U.S. and in Trinidad, and been interviewed numerous times on television and radio programs. She has organized and directed conferences on visual narration at the University of Puerto Rico (2005 & 2007), and on Caribbean film in the Dominican Republic (2020). She has also produced/coordinated and/or supported the production of numerous films made by students and graduates of the UPRM film program, and other filmmakers since 2007. She is the co-founder and co-host of Caribbean Film Forum, a series of online conversations on topics related to film in the context of the Caribbean (2021 – present). She is also one of the recipients of a National Endowment of the Humanities grant for the 2022 year which will fund the establishment of an Oral History Center at UPRM with a documentary film production component.