Mountains
Directed by: Monica Sorelle
While looking for a new home for his family, a Haitian demolition worker is faced with the realities of redevelopment as he is tasked with dismantling his rapidly gentrifying Miami neighborhood.
Fiction | 1hr 30 min | 2023 | Digital
Audio language: Haitian Creole, English, Spanish
Subtitles language: English
Monica Sorelle
Filmmaker
Monica Sorelle is a Haitian-American filmmaker and artist born & based in Miami. Her work explores alienation and displacement, and preserves cultural traditions within Miami & the Caribbean with a focus on the African & Latin diasporas that reside there.
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Monica’s feature directorial debut, Mountains, had its world premiere at Tribeca Festival, where it was awarded a Special Jury Mention in the U.S. Narrative Feature competition, and its international premiere at Toronto International Film Festival. Mountains was nominated for two Film Independent Spirit Awards, with Monica receiving the Someone to Watch Award.
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As a creative producer, Monica’s short films have won top prizes at Berlinale, BlackStar, and Miami Film Festival, been selected at Sundance, New Orleans Film Festival, and New Directors/New Films, and have been acquired by Criterion Channel and the Black Film Center & Archive.
Her photo and video work has been shown in group exhibitions at various institutions including Oolite Arts, Art and Culture Center/Hollywood, Augusta Savage Gallery, and on PAMM TV, and supported by Pérez Art Museum Miami’s Caribbean Cultural Institute Artist Fellowship, Locust Project’s Wavemaker Grant, and Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs. Monica has received a Princess Grace Award, a South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship, and an Ellies Creator Award. She is a current studio resident at Bakehouse Art Complex.
Robert
Colom-Vargas
Robert Colom-Vargas (he/they) is a filmmaker, film curator, and social artist from Miami. Through investigations of spatial and narrative belonging, his work explores the cultural synapses between the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean as they materialize across the diasporic space and inform the cultural inheritance of America’s immigrant populations.
Directed by and co-written with Monica Sorelle, his film “Mountains” was awarded a Special Jury Prize at its Tribeca Festival debut, and premiered internationally at TIFF ahead of a national theatrical release in 2024. His narrative work has been prized at the Film Independent Spirit Awards (Someone to Watch, 2024), Berlinale (Golden Bear, 2020), and Miami Film Festival, and can be seen on Criterion Channel, Mubi, HBO, and PBS.
Producer, Co-Writter