Community Justice Project + Oolite Arts
In 2020, Oolite Arts partnered with the Community Justice Project to focus on the cinematic storytelling of some of Miami’s most pressing issues. This collaborative model pairs a filmmaker with real community experts, the people closest to the issues and on the front lines, for community-centered storytelling.
For this second iteration of “Pass the Mic: We Will Tell Our Stories,” three filmmakers worked with community experts to create new short documentary films spotlighting organizing and community power happening in local collectives and organizations like WeCount!, Miami Workers Center and The Allapattah Collaborative CDC. The filmmakers had four months to complete the commissioned works, which will be screened on July 22 at the Little Haiti Cultural Center.
Contact
Have questions? Please contact Cinematic Arts Manager Danielle Bender.
Filmmaker
Ronald Baez, “Apart < A part"
Aquino, a local Miami tailor in the predominantly Dominican neighborhood of Allapattah, reflects on his personal story of building his tailor shop alongside his wife over two decades.
Ronald Baez is a Caribbean-American film director, producer, and award-winning immersive media artist from Miami, Fla. His current and previous short film projects continue to screen at film festivals and museums worldwide including HBO’s New York Latino Film Festival, the Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival, the Oscar-Qualifying Florida and Short Shorts (Tokyo) Film Festivals, the Norton Museum of Art, and the Florida Museum of Natural History. Several of Baez’s short film projects have also been distributed for national television broadcast by PBS as well as online by Seed&Spark SVOD.
Community Expert
Fidel Aquino
Fidel Aquino is a tailor in Allapattah, Fla. He was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to Miami in 2006 to open his business Aquino Tailor, which has become a staple of the community since. His business has served members of the community as well as famous musicians and local politicians.
Filmmaker
Diana Larrea, “Monarcas” – The story of two Guatemalan day laborers in Homestead, FL whose fight against wage theft in their community takes them on a journey of personal transformation.
Diana Larrea is a Peruvian filmmaker, documentary photographer, and visual artist who lives and works in Miami, Florida. For the past decade, Diana has collaborated with Miami artists and has been commissioned to poetically capture intimate portraits of their studios and processes. She has documented communities in Miami and Perú grappling with landscapes transformed through the forces of development, gentrification, and colonialism. In 2019 Larrea served as editor of the Emmy-winning cultural documentary short “Six Degrees of Immigration”. She was awarded the 2018 Knight Art Champions grant by The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for her continuing documentary work about identity and territory in Perú.
Community Expert
Alejandro
Alejandro is a day laborer in Homestead, Fla. He was born in Tacaná San Marcos, Guatemala and was raised in Cuilco Huehuetenango. Alejandro is a father to seven children, six of whom still live in Guatemala, and a member leader of WeCount!, including serving in WeCount!’s Outdoor Workers Committee and Board of Directors.
Community Expert
Pedro
Pedro is a day laborer in Homestead, Fla. He was born and raised in Nebaj Quiché, Guatemala and speaks the Mayan indigenous languages of Ixil and Quiché. Pedro is a father to three children and a member leader of WeCount!, including serving in WeCount!’s Outdoor Workers Committee and Board of Directors.
Filmmaker
Terence Price II, “Rooted like a tree” – With a housing crisis on the rise, Miami Workers Center aims to pass the first Tenant Bill of Rights in Miami.
Terence Price II is an artist who emerges from a tradition of mid-twentieth-century street photography, capturing the world around him in evocative portraits and cinematic snapshots. He blends this history of the medium with a distinctly contemporary understanding of representation, collaboration, image-making, and the way media circulates in our culture. Using his camera to document the people closest to him, folks he encounters in his daily life, and the sites he inhabits within Miami, Price locates the rich territory in which the personal takes on shared and collective meaning. His photographs offer to the public record a depiction of the intimacies of place, family, and relationships.
Community Expert
Keisha Guyton
Keisha Guyton is a member of Miami Workers Center, founder of Black Women Empowering Our Community, and an NAACP Youth Advisor. A single mother of three, Keisha’s life is dedicated to fighting for her family and her community. She believes that injustice for one is an injustice for all and that housing is a human right.
2021 Filmmakers + Community Experts
Filmaker
Alicia Edwards, “Village (Free)dge”
As COVID-19 leaves Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood under siege, two friends tirelessly combat the hunger crisis with community support to keep the Village (Free)dge filled.
Community Expert
Danny Agnew, Roots Collective
Community Expert
Sherina Jones, Village (FREE)dge
2021 Filmmakers + Community Experts
Filmaker
Fxrbes, “Beyond the Bars”
Documenting the injustices at Metro West Detention Center through the eyes of someone with a loved one on the inside
Community Expert
Lizabeth Torres, Beyond the Bars
2021 Filmmakers + Community Experts
Filmaker
Vanessa Charlot, “Final Notice”
In the midst of a global pandemic, substandard housing conditions and then an eviction—one Miami woman wins the fight against her landlord and finds her voice to advocate and educate other tenants on fair housing rights.
Community Expert
Mychelle Bentley, Tenants Rights Organizer
About
Community Justice Project is a group of community lawyers and researchers that supports grassroots organizing for power, racial justice and human rights with innovative lawyering, research and creative strategy tools. Based in Miami, Community Justice Project is deeply and unapologetically committed to Black and brown communities throughout Florida.
Oolite Arts strives to be a leader in the South Florida contemporary cultural scene as a creative learning center and internationally recognized as a world-class cultural center.