The festival has selected more than 40 films from 20 countries, including documentary and narrative features, as well as short films. Some of the filmmakers are from Miami, and six have had their films selected to open the festival at PAMM. As part of the Third Horizon Forward Program, started in 2022 to support local Caribbean-heritage filmmakers, Greko Sklavounos, Hansel Porras Garcia, Rachelle Salnave, Berenicé Brino, and Al'ikens Plancher all produced short films funded by the festival.
"We're thrilled to be opening the festival for the first time with a program of Miami-made work, the world premieres of the beautiful short films coming out of our Third Horizon Forward program," says Jonathan Ali, director of programming for Third Horizon, in a statement. "This is in addition to our regular lineup of formally radical and politically astute features and programs of short films, films speaking memorably to issues of resistance and liberation in a moment when such films are needed as much as ever."
Indeed, the films at Third Horizon aren't typical blockbuster fare. The festival prioritizes innovative and experimental approaches to filmmaking, and its selections often blur the lines between documentary and fiction. Emilia Beatriz's film Barrunto is a great example of this. Co-presented with the New York documentary festival Prismatic Ground, the film's experimental narrative jumps between Scotland, Puerto Rico, the ocean floor, and deep space in its examination of "grief and resistance across diasporic distance."
Documentaries feature strongly in on the lineup, including Ramona, a documentary following an actress in the Dominican Republic interviewing pregnant teens as she prepares to play one; Calls From Moscow, a documentary following Cubans trapped in Moscow on the eve of the Russo-Ukrainian War; and The Enigma of Harold Sonny Ladoo, a documentary about a young, queer Trinidadian writer and his mysterious death. There is also Doubles, a narrative film about a Trinidadian street vendor who flies to Canada to confront his supposedly wealthy absentee father.
Ian Harnarine's Doubles follows a Trinidadian street vendor who flies to Canada to confront his supposedly wealthy absentee father.
Photo by Lucas Joseph
The festival is being led this year by a high-profile voice in the local film community and a veteran of the organization. Monica Sorelle, director of the Independent Spirit Award-winning film Mountains, will serve as this year's managing director. Sorelle, who recently screened Mountains at this year's Miami Film Festival, has been a member of Third Horizon since the festival's first edition in 2016 at the dearly departed O Cinema Wynwood.
"Third Horizon Film Festival has been a fundamental part of my film career and education," Sorelle says. "It's an honor to be back to facilitate what I call our comeback year, where we recommit to Miami and its film community and fill the crucial but necessary gap in screening Third World films to a first- and second-generation immigrant population."
Tickets and passes for Third Horizon 2024 are available on the festival's website and range in price depending on the level of access. A day pass costs $50, while a general all-access pass runs $225. The festival will also screen its programming virtually May 13-19; virtual passes cost $100. A selection of films from Third Horizon is also screening on the Criterion Channel. (New Times' wrote about the series last year.)
Luis Alejandro Yero's documentary Calls From Moscow tells the stories of Cubans trapped in Moscow on the eve of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Courtesy of Third Horizon Film Festival
Features
- Barrunto (Puerto Rico/Scotland, dir. Emilia Beatriz)
- Doubles (Trinidad and Tobago/Canada, dir. Ian Harnarine)
- L'homme-vertige: Tales of a City (Guadeloupe, dir. Malaury Eloi Paisley)
- Calls From Moscow (Cuba/Germany/Norway, dir. Luis Alejandro Yero)
- Dancing the Stumble (Martinique, dir. Wally Fall)
- Nowhere Near (Philippines/Mexico/United States, dir. Miko Revereza)
- Ramona (Dominican Republic, dir. Victoria Linares)
- Simon Says/Dadda (United Kingdom, dir. Beverly Bennett)
- The Enigma of Harold Sonny Ladoo (Trinidad and Tobago/Canada, dir. Richard Fung)
Short Films
- Ancestral Clouds Ancestral Claims (Austria/Germany, dir. Arjuna Neuman, Denise Ferreira da Silva)
- Burnt Milk (Jamaica/United Kingdom, dir. Joseph Douglas Elmhirst)
- Ca(r)milla (Trinidad and Tobago, dir. Kearra Amaya Gopee)
- Wandering Song (Dominican Republic/Spain, dir. Génesis Valenzuela)
- Coconut (Jamaica, dir. Jard Lerebours)
- Dreams Like Paper Boats (Haiti, dir. Samuel Suffren)
- Drax Sycorax (Barbados, dir. Renee Royale)
- Example #35 (Cuba/Uruguay, dir. Lucía Malandro, Daniel D. Saucedo)
- Fatherspy (Venezuela/Argentina, dir. Humberto González Bustillo)
- Fields Fallen From Distant Songs (United States, dir. Maya Jeffereis)
- History is Written At Night (Cuba, dir. Alejandro Alonso)
- How to Love A Place So the Children Will Love Their Land (Puerto Rico, dir. Laura Sofía Pérez)
- Our Islands (Martinique, dir. Aliha Thalien)
- Onyeka Igwe: And Let History Begin (United Kingdom, dir. Onyeka Igwe)
- Picture a Forest (United States, dir. David Rodriguez)
- Proximity Study (Sight Lines) (United States, dir. Elizabeth M. Webb)
- Raiz (Portugal, dir. Raydrick Feliciana)
- Retrospection of a Home (Once Upon a Time...) (Venezuela/United States, dir. Sebastian Marcano-Pérez)
- Solmatalua (Brazil, dir. Rodrigo Ribeiro-Andrade)
- Soon Come Back (Jamaica/United States, dir. Nande Walters)
- Childhood (United States, dir. Vi Tuong Bui)
- A Gavillero in the Sierra (Dominican Republic, dir. Ricardo Ariel Toribio)
- Under the Sky of Fetishes (Mauritius/France, dir. Caroline Déodat)
Opening Night Program: The Short Films of Third Horizon Forward
- Boat People (United States, dir. Al'ikens Plancher)
- I Love You So Much, But You Are So Difficult (United States, dir. Berenicé Brino)
- Art: By Any Means Necessary (Haiti, Guadeloupe, dir. Rachelle Salnave)
- Summon (Jamaica/United States, dir. Nile Saulter)
- Sol y Mar (United States, dir. Greko Sklavounos)
- Ana y La Distancia (United States, dir. Hansel Porras García)
