The Cabot has been showing movies for 103 years. It’s time for a new—more diverse—chapter of storytelling.
Amplifying Voices brings impactful stories and voices to Beverly, MA through presenting films by and about people of color. These two days of films are curated by Sabrina Aviles and Lisa Simmons—the Executive Directors of CineFest Latino Boston and The Roxbury International Film Festival.
We hope to make all voices and people feel welcome in our community by uplifting those who are too often marginalized. With the help of the filmmakers as well as civic, arts, and educational organizations across the North Shore, we hope to deepen empathy, expand understanding, and advance important conversations.
SPONSORED BY
2024 Program
OPENING & CLOSING NIGHT FEATURES
OPENING NIGHT
La Pecera (THE FISHBOWL)
Director Glorimar Marrero Sánchez
Narrative. 93 minutes
Spanish with English Subtitles
Puerto Rico
After years of remission, Noelia’s cancer has returned and is spreading quickly. Exhausted by relentless treatment plans and pills that do more harm than good, she seeks another way out. Brushing aside her boyfriend Jorge’s well-meaning but suffocating gestures, she heads back to Vieques, the blissful eastern Puerto Rican island where she grew up; a land grappling with its own poisoning after decades of contamination from U.S. Army operations. With Hurricane Irma closing in, and alongside her mother in the serene comforts of home, Noelia looks for an answer to her pain in the land she’s always been intertwined with.
Sundance Film Festival – 2023 Nominee Grand Jury Prize (World Cinema – Dramatic)
Göteborg Film Festival – 2023 Nominee Ingmar Bergman Award (Best Debut Feature)
Seattle International Film Festival – 2023 Winner (Ibero American Competition)
CLOSING NIGHT
A Story of Bones
Peggy King Jorde
Documentary. 95 minutes
United Kingdom
The island of Saint Helena is best known for being where the deposed emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled, died and originally buried. His beautifully maintained grave is one of the remote island’s biggest tourist’s attractions. To increase tourism, the island builds its first commercial airport, and hires Annina van Neel as its Construction Environmental Officer to assist with the project that was experiencing delays. During construction, van Neel learns about an unmarked mass burial ground of an estimated 9,000 formerly enslaved African men, women and children retrieved from slave ships during the Middle Passage, on the site. The discovery revealed one of the most significant physical traces of the transatlantic slave trade still on earth.
Haunted by this historical injustice, Annina sets out to hold the Government accountable. Feeling increasingly isolated on the island, Annina looked to the outside world for help. She found an ally in Peggy King Jorde, a renowned African American preservationist whose work – thirty years earlier –– was born of a similar struggle and produced New York’s African Burial Ground National Monument. Together they fight for the proper memorialization of these forgotten victims, exposing the UK’s disturbing colonial past and present.
Directors Joseph Curran and Dominic Aubrey de Vere follow the activists as they experience victories and setbacks while placing front and center the legacy of colonial rule on an island still governed by Britain. The narrative in A Story of Bones isn’t consigned to just Saint Helena. It emanates outward connecting the global consequences of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Artists in their Own words
DOC WEST MOVES
Directed by Federico Muchnik (USA, 2022, 14 min.)
Presented with open captions; audio description available
DOC WEST MOVES follows Cambridge, Massachusetts, resident Lewis “Doc” West—a blind, Black blues musician—as he moves out of his current apartment and into a new place across town. No matter where he goes, Doc lives with the power of Jesus and faith that the Lord will provide for him and see him through life’s challenges.
Cara Romero: Following the Light
Directed by Kaela Waldstein (USA, 2022, 27 min.)
Cara Romero is a contemporary fine art photographer and an enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe. She grew up between two contrasting settings: the rural Chemehuevi reservation in the Mojave Desert of California and the urban sprawl of Houston, Texas. Romero’s complex identity informs her work. Her photography is a blend of fine art and editorial, shaped by years of study and a visceral approach to representing Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural memory, collective history, and lived experiences from a Native American woman’s perspective.
Charles Gaines: Systems and Structures
Directed by Ian Forster and Sue Ding (USA, 2022, 11 min.)
Charles Gaines is a pivotal figure in the field of conceptual art. The artist investigates the production of knowledge and culture by using rule-based systems to create paintings, drawings, musical compositions, and sculptures. His exploration culminates in the completion of Moving Chains (2022), a 100-foot-long public sculpture on Governors Island in New York City.
The Dancing Diplomat
Directed by Andrew Eldridge (USA, 2022, 20 min.)
Meet Aysha Upchurch—she is a dancer, educator, diplomat and peacemaker. Aysha is a force of nature for many reasons, but it’s her gift for inspiring students that truly makes her shine.
Wrung from the Inside Out
Directed by Daniel Callahan and Daniel “Vill” Villanueva (USA, 2022, 4 min.)
Wrung from the Inside Out is a dedication to the Indigenous people of the Eastern Woodlands, whose history of genocide most of society continues to sweep under the rug. The film aims to tell truths that have not yet been heard.
Azikiwe Mohammed is a Guy Who Makes Stuff
Directed by Brian Redondo (USA, 2022, 10 min.)
Azikiwe Mohammed rejects the “genius artist” title. Instead, he believes that “the word ‘artist’ is a little funky.… I would self-describe as a ‘guy who makes stuff.’” Mohammed embraces the modest, the eclectic, and above all, the helpful.
The Mural Master
Directed by Andrew Eldridge (USA, 2023, 20 min.)
Rob “ProBlak” Gibbs is a Roxbury native whose work helped define hip-hop’s golden age. The iconoclast made a name for himself through his murals, but he became a legend by giving a voice to the unheard.
Next Generation Youth Films – Boston Arts Academy
Trapped Shadows
Directed by Mykayla DeSouza
Boston Bound
Directed by Yuder M.A.
The Forbidden Love
Directed by Enidaliz
Falling
Directed by a student
Teen Years
Directed by Katheryn Schott
Lucid
Directed by NelVanGogh
Animation Shorts
Blueberry
Directed by Stephanie Glover (USA, 2023, 5 min.)
A determined and practical young boy embraces magic when his favorite food comes to life.
The Park Bench
Directed by Rob Edwards (USA, 2022, 4:02 min.)
This is a story of Bella, a little girl who sees her father—the strongest person she’s ever known— struggling to survive. In her attempt to reconcile herself with that, she sees a wounded duck in need of care and distracts herself by nursing the duck back to health.
Mine
Directed by Randall Dottin and Luisa Dantas (USA, 2021,12 min.)
An animated web series that poignantly explores the timely theme of community versus individual survival through the eyes of a teenager. When Blaze reluctantly steps into the esteemed role of Water Bearer with the help of their precocious sister Mia, they discover that their idealistic community may not be as magnanimous as they think.
Blue
Directed by Robert Petrie (USA, 2022, 7 min.)
Jules Reid is a bright and curious 12-year-old coming to terms with the mysterious disappearance of her mother—a NASA scientist—a few years earlier. Julie ponders worlds and galaxies unseen, unknown, and unimagined. As she gazes up at the stars, she questions if their exploration is within reach.
TRANSTIERRO
TRANSTIERRODirected by Susana Arrazola · Drama , Animation (Mexico, 2023 8:40)
Irene lives locked in her memories, painting self-portraits. Despite her apparent calm, an object, beating at the heart of the house, calls her to explore the depths of her home. Her direct confrontation with her father’s suitcase triggers in Irene a series of painful memories that lead her to accept her loss and, consequently, to escape her state of melancholy.
Fonos
FonosDirected by Gabriela Badillo (Mexico, 2023 9 min.)
Cloe and her grandfather share a fondness for sounds, which they sense, admire, absorb, and catalog.
Savi the Cat
Directed by Netsie Tjirongo and Bryan Tucker (USA, 2023, 18 min.)
When a devoted Kenyan husband surprises his new Black American wife with an adorable kitten, neither are prepared for the destruction it wields upon their home, their life, and ultimately their marriage.
