30433: Vanderkooy: (announce) "The Sugar Babies" film screening at FIU (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tricia Vanderkooy <t_vanderkooy@hotmail.com>

The Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University
in cooperation with the FIU Department of Sociology and Anthropology invites 
you to the South Florida screening of

"The Sugar Babies: The Plight of the Children of Agricultural Workers in the 
Sugar Industry of the Dominican Republic"

Wednesday, June 27, 2007 | 2 pm - 5 pm | Graham Center Room 140 | FIU 
University Park

Presented as part of the 2007 Haitian Summer Institute
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Amy Serrano
The event is free and open to the public

While exposing those who continue to profit, the feature-length documentary 
film vividly explores the lives of the descendants of the first Africans 
delivered to the island of Hispaniola for the bittersweet commodity that once 
ruled the world.  These very same people continue to be trafficked to work in 
sugar under circumstances that can only be considered modern day slavery.

"The Sugar Babies" examines the moral price of sugar — present and past — from 
the perspective of the conditions surrounding the children of sugar cane 
cutters of Haitian ancestry in the Dominican Republic, and the continuing 
denial of their basic human rights.

Composed of gripping field testimonies and hidden camera footage obtained 
during 18 months of documentation, the film also features interviews with 
Haiti's Ambassador to the United States, Ambassador Raymond Joseph, the U.S. 
Department of States' Ambassador John Miller from the Office of Human 
Trafficking, renowned anthropologist and sugar historian Sidney Mintz, Carol 
Pier from Human Rights Watch, Public Interest Attorneys Bill Quigley as well as 
Greg Schell, and a number of brave activists from the field including Dominican 
human rights lawyer Noemi Mendez, Colette Lespinase of G.A.R.R. Haiti 
[Organization for Refugees and the Repatriated], Batey Activist Jhonny 
Belizaire, Television Journalist Huchi Lora, and missionaries Pierre Ruquoy and 
Father Christopher Hartley.

The film is narrated by award-winning author Edwidge Danticat, and contains 
original music by the film's composer Bill Cruz including the songs "Branded" 
and "The Devil's Work."  The documentary also features the music of Bola de 
Nieve, Alberto Beltran, Kenny Rankin, Solomon Burke and the Blind Boys of 
Alabama and original field recordings by The Sugar Babies.

"The Sugar Babies" was produced through Siren Studios 
[Miami-www.sirenstudios.net ] in association with The Hope, Courage and Justice 
Project [New Orleans] and The Human Rights Foundation [New York].  The film's 
production team includes Editor and Art Director Jason A. Ocasio, Production 
Associate and Legal Counsel Salvador Longoria,   Associate Producer Thor 
Halvorssen, Co-Producer Constance Haqq, and Executive Producer Claudia Chiesi.

The film was written, shot, produced and directed by filmmaker and FIU graduate 
Amy Serrano and was launched on March 28, 2007 from the City of New Orleans at 
Roussel Performance Hall at Loyola University.   It is additionally targeted 
for international release via film festivals, television, universities, and as 
an awareness-creating resource for human rights organizations.

The 99-minute documentary is in Spanish, Creole, French and English and is 
subtitled in English.

The Sugar Babies was made possible by The Crowley Children's Fund, Tico Pujals, 
Cindy Nord, The Fund for a Just Society and the generosity of many others.  For 
additional information, please contact:  TheSugarBabies@aol.com.

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