Sugar Island

Official Selection – Giornate degli Autori (Venice Days), 81st Venice International Film Festival

Winner of more than a dozen international and US awards, including:
• Best Latin American Film — Cinema Tropical Awards (2026)
• Best Feature Narrative — BlackStar Film Festival (2025)
• Best Film Directed by a Woman of Color — ADIFF NYC (2025)

Selected for Art House Theater Day 2026, Sugar Island exemplifies the artistic ambition, cultural significance, and distinctive cinematic voice that independent theaters champion. Through its powerful exploration of race, labor, migration, womanhood, and historical memory, the film offers audiences a rare opportunity to engage with one of the most acclaimed Caribbean films of recent years.

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Sugar Island immerses us in the Dominican Republic’s sugarcane fields, where Makenya, a Dominican-Haitian teenager, navigates an unwanted pregnancy and the harsh labor that defines her world.

Director Johanné Gómez Terrero masterfully blends social realism, spirituality, and Afro-futurism to expose the enduring legacy of colonial exploitation. As Makenya confronts family burdens and the specter of displacement, a mysterious theater troupe's arrival illuminates the haunting connections between past and present struggles.

As Makenya battles for her future, her grandfather fights for justice, and displacement looms, the film delivers a lyrical, visually rich exploration of identity, survival, and the enduring power of cultural memory.

Spain/Dominican Republic, 2024, 91 mins, drama in Haitian and Spanish (with English subtitles), Johanne Gomez Terrero, dir. 

“Johanné Gómez Terrero blends tradition and spirituality, the literal and the allegorical, in a beautifully made and deeply touching fiction feature debut. The themes of labour rights, protests against the mechanization of the sugar industry, and decolonial thought make Sugar Island a syncretic, politically engaged work that avoids all traces of didacticism. On the contrary, the film’s gorgeous look, thanks to lensing by Alván Prado, alludes to the many layers of reality and beyond" ~ Savina Petkova, Cineuropa

FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS

• Venice International Film Festival
• BFI London Film Festival
• African Diaspora International Film Festival
• Thessaloniki International Film Festival
• BlackStar Film Festival
• Lima Film Festival
• Málaga Film Festival
• Taipei Film Festival

SELECTED U.S. SCREENINGS

• BlackStar Film Festival
• ADIFF DC
• Cinestudio
• Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe
• Amherst College
• BAM Caribbean Film Series