Maria Marrone

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?

Plagued by anxiety about climate change, a filmmaker decides to start seeing a climate psychologist, hoping to find peace of mind at what she’s pretty sure is the end of the world.

30 years after the genocide that tore apart their mothers’ worlds, a group of young Rwandans confront the family secrets and the wounds their generation is carrying. They are led by Emilienne, a therapist and genocide survivor, to try to break cycles of intergenerational trauma together.

Left behind in a city under siege, a software engineer transforms his loneliness into a lifeline for others, creating virtual worlds of healing that defy the destruction around him. This film is an intimate portrait of resilience, exploring how one man’s compassion and creativity become tools for survival. It's a story about holding on to family through distance, building connection through technology, and refusing to let go of hope even when the world gives every reason to.

Danyeli, formerly undocumented, is finally able to return to the Dominica Republic to visit with her grandmother and family that she had left behind when she migrated to the US so long ago. While visiting, she learned that her father had left the DR via a yola (a small boat) from the DR to Puerto Rico before reaching the mainland, a treacherous journey that many migrants undergo, a journey that's claimed many lives at sea. Danyeli is now learning the true cost of what it took for her parents to find and give her a better life.