GRAND JURY PRIZE - DOC NYC | BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE - Boston Latino International Film Festival | BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE - Guanajuato International Film Festival
Latinx Studies • Capitalism and Economic Inequality • Climate Change/Environmental Issues • (Post)Colonial Studies
Date of Completion: 2020 | Run Time: 93 minutes | Language: English/Spanish | Captions: Yes | Includes: Transcript and Discussion Guide (Available Upon Purchase) | Director: Cecilia Aldarondo | Producer: Ines Hofmann Kanna
Through shard-like glimpses of everyday life in post-Hurricane María Puerto Rico, LANDFALL is a cautionary tale for our times. Set against the backdrop of protests that toppled the US colony’s governor in 2019, the film offers a prismatic portrait of collective trauma and resistance. While the devastation of María attracted a great deal of media coverage, the world has paid far less attention to the storm that preceded it: a 72-billion-dollar debt crisis crippling Puerto Rico well before the winds and waters hit. LANDFALL examines the kinship of these two storms—one environmental, the other economic—juxtaposing competing utopian visions of recovery. Featuring intimate encounters with Puerto Ricans as well as the newcomers flooding the island, LANDFALL reflects on a question of contemporary global relevance: when the world falls apart, who do we become?
Video Librarian
"The understated documentary is both engaging and informative, bringing attention to what happened after the world's interest in Hurricane María waned. Landfall highlights the persistence, resilience, and courage of the Puerto Rican people as they fight for the future of their homes. Recommended."
Educational Media Reviews Online | Sara DeSantis, Reference and Research Librarian, University of South Carolina Upstate
“The documentary Landfall is a beautifully shot documentary depicting life in Puerto Rico in the two years between the destruction of Hurricane Maria in 2017 and when people took to the streets to remove Ricardo Rossello as Governor in 2019 [...] I recommend Landfall because of its amazing shots of life in Puerto Rico and the information that you get from all of the interviews.”
Moveable Fest | Stephen Saito, editor and writer
“Extraordinarily prescient… In Aldarondo’s extraordinary film, a crisis can bring out the worst in people, but also the best.”
Filmmaker Magazine | Brett Story
“[A]n exquisite film, by turns tender and compassionate, cinematically adventurous and self-assured.”
Hollywood Reporter | Jordan Mintzer, writer and producer
“For those of us whose memory of Hurricane Maria boils down to footage of President Donald Trump scornfully tossing out paper towels to a crowd at a disaster relief center, Cecilia Aldarondo’s documentary Landfall offers up a welcome flipside.”
AWARDS
Oscars Contendor
Nominee, Truer than Fiction Award | Film Independent Spirit Awards
Nominee | Cinema Eye Honors Spotlight Award
Grand Jury Award, Viewfinders Competition | DOC NYC
Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary | Florida Film Festival
Best Feature Documentary | Guanajuato International Film Festival
Best Documentary | Milwaukee Film Festival
Best Documentary Feature | Boston Latino International Film Festival
Jury Honorable Mention | New Orleans Film Festival
FESTIVALS
Tribeca Film Festival
DOC NYC
Doxa
Blackstar
Guanajuato International Film Festival
Camden International Film Festival
Amherst Cinema
Boston Latino International Film Festival
AFI Latin American Film Festival
Buffalo International Film Festival
Milwaukee Film Festival
Wexner Center for the Arts
Green Screen Film Festival in Trinidad & Tobago
Hawaii International Film Festival
Glimmerglass Film Days
New Orleans Film Society
Houston Cinema Arts Society
IDFA
Foyle Film Festival
Filmocracy Fest
Montclair Film Festival
ReFrame Peterborough International Film Festival
Chicago Latino Film Festival
SF Indie Livable Planet Film Festival
Cecilia Aldarondo is a documentary director-producer from the Puerto Rican diaspora who makes films at the intersection of poetics and politics. Her latest film, LANDFALL, offers a prismatic portrait of collective trauma and resistance in post-Hurricane María Puerto Rico. Her earlier documentary MEMORIES OF A PENITENT HEART (Tribeca 2016) had its World Premiere at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival and was broadcast on POV in 2017. She is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2017 Women at Sundance Fellow, two-time MacDowell Colony Fellow, and recipient of a 2019 Bogliasco Foundation Residency. In 2019 she was named to DOC NYC's 40 Under 40 list and is one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film for 2015. She received the 2021 Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award from the International Documentary Association. She teaches at Williams College.
Associate Producer & Collaborator of LANDFALL
Lale Namerrow Pastor is a queer, transfeminist person. Born in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico to a Dominican mother and absent father. They completed undergraduate studies in Photography and Art History at the University of Puerto Rico and continued academic studies in Film Production and Direction at the New York Film Academy in New York City. Lale currently resides in Puerto Rico, where they are a musical curator in the subversive queer scene, archival researcher and video producer. Among so much, they are Caribbean, activist, videographer, editor, soundperson, advisor, compañere, turba, and possibly everything that fits between those labels.