Caribbean Film Series Shorts Program

Intricately personal short films explore familial relationships across histories of migration and diasporic longing, featuring live discussions with select filmmakers.

Burnt Milk (2023)
Dir. Joseph Douglas Elmhirst, 10min
Jamaica/UK

In London, an isolated Jamaican woman takes a moment of solace to make burnt milk and is flooded with spiritual imagery that transports her home.

Canto Errante (2022)
Dir. Génesis Valenzuela, 6min
Dominican Republic/Spain

A little girl narrates the myth of original sin—a tear in the garden of Eden. On the other side, inside a cold, bare bedroom, a woman talks to her absent father. On the faded wall is a little piece of the lost paradise.

Soon Come Back (2023)
Dir. Nande Walters, 15min
Jamaica/US

Director Nande Walters explores memory and forgetting during a trip to visit her grandparents in Jamaica. From her father’s childhood home in Kingston to her grandmother’s birthplace in the mountains of Negril, the filmmaker retraces their migrations as young adults, using the camera to bridge the 22 years of distance between her, her grandmother, and her ancestral land. 

Retrospection of a Home (2024)
Dir. Sebastian Marcano-Pérez, 9min
US

This short explores the collective memory of a Venezuelan family in exile and the home they had to leave behind years ago.

Ca(r)milla (2023)
Dir. Kearra Amaya Gopee, 12min
Trinidad and Tobago

On its surface, Ca(r)milla appears to be an excerpt from a documentary surrounding the daily life of the owner of a small landscaping business in Trinidad. However, the business is quickly revealed to be a front: the owner is really part vampire and part  soucouyant, the shape-shifting, blood-sucking figure of Caribbean folklore.

Dreams like Paper Boats (2024)
Dir. Samuel Suffren, 19min
Haiti

Edouard has been living in Port-au-Prince with his daughter Zara for five years. Since his wife left, they have only received an audio cassette from her. After years of absence, what can be expected of distant love?

Coconut (2022)
Dir. Jard Lerebours, 4min
Jamaica

This short details the director’s trip to his mother’s homeland of Jamaica to bury his grandmother, who was also his caretaker. Composed of original Super 8mm footage filmed in Jamaica, as well as found footage, Coconut is a public declaration of love.