Short Program: HOMELANDS

From traditional non-fiction to more experimental approaches, and from the playful to the poignant, the five films in this programme all grapple with notions of home and belonging.

Searching for Ana Veldford
Dir. Ronald Baez / 6 minutes / 2020 / United States
A middle-aged mother of two reflects on her emotional decision to immigrate to the United States some 30 years earlier, in this reflective documentary short that borrows its title from a uniquely powerful poem by the legendary exiled Cuban writer Lourdes Casal.

Motherland
Dir. Ellen Evans / 13 minutes / 2020 / United Kingdom
Motherland traces the experiences of two young men forcibly returned to Jamaica after a lifetime in Britain, alongside the story of a Windrush-generation man denied re-entry to the UK. Through the personal accounts of those who have had their British identity questioned by the state, Motherland explores what it really means for someone to “go back home.”

Artifact #3: Terra Nullius
Dir.  Kearra Amaya Gopee / 11 minutes / 2019 / Trinidad & Tobago and United States
Artifact #3: Terra Nullius visualizes how personhood, family and intimacy are influenced by lineages of trauma and spirituality within diasporic Caribbean identity. An exploration of how migration and memory affect manifestations of the Anglophone Caribbean family from the pre-Independence period to the present, the film uses the filmmaker’s own family history as a point of reference.

Morning Sickness in the USA
Dir. Christine Brache / 3 minutes / 2020 / United States
In Morning Sickness in the USA, director Cristine Brache shares the story of her grandmother, who was quarantined in 1961 after seeing a doctor for inexplicable nausea. Having immigrated to the US from Puerto Rico, doctors suspected she had an infectious disease and put her in quarantine in a mental asylum. The reason for her nausea was later revealed to be pregnancy.

Home Soon Come
Dir. Hope Strickland / 22 minutes / 2020 / United Kingdom
Home Soon Come is part of an ongoing project with the elderly Caribbean community in south Manchester. Theh film plays between archival footage of the Caribbean islands, interviews with family members, and scenes shot in a day centre for the elderly. It explores diasporic movements, memory-placing through domestic objects, and what it means to find ourselves at home in the people around us.

Please note: this program can be viewed only once during a three-hour window beginning at the scheduled time. For more information on viewing this program or any films, please visit our FAQ and How to Watch pages.