Shenny de Los Angeles

The Ritual to Beauty is a mixed media piece integrating the stylization of documentary and spoken word. Inspired by Shenny’s one-woman show “What Happens to Brown Girls Who Never Learn How to Love Themselves Brown?”, this piece invites you to witness the meaning of beauty through three generations of Dominican women. The grandmother, the mother, and the daughter. In learning about the ritual to beauty that was passed down to each woman, there is a pain buried deep in the denial of their blackness. It is only through the secret voice in the water, that the daughter is able to release herself from a pain she’s been holding onto since she was born. By forgiving herself and the women before her, will she finally see just how beautiful she is when she’s free?

hija de Florinda is a poetic offering, meditating on the spiritual connection between protecting the land and protecting our children. Set in the Florida Everglades, a young Naomi learns from her grandmother how to nurture nature's grief through the ancestral practice of controlled burns. By integrating archival footage of Dominican farmer and abolitionist Mama Tingo (Florinda Soriano), this film invites us to mourn alongside Mama Earth as she calls upon all of her children.

A Caribbean-American coming-of-age story. Chronicling a friendship bonded through a shared fear of getting into the water, Larimar and Ambar discover how to heal generational wounds through the intimacy of sisterhood.