Filmmaker Monica Sorelle found inspiration on a demolition site.
It was 2018 when Sorelle and her co-worker and fellow filmmaker Robert Colom were walking to lunch in Wynwood. Demolition sites were rampant in the burgeoning arts neighborhood, and the two saw houses get demolished daily. But one demolition worker caught Sorelle’s eye. He waved bye to his coworkers, crossed the street and walked into a residential area. She wondered if he lived there.
Sorelle and Colom had learned about a local nonprofit’s residency that offered $50,000 to create a micro-budget feature film. They didn’t plan on applying because they felt they weren’t ready. Still, they often joked about the movie they would make if they could.
Sorelle turned to Colom and said, “Micro-budget idea: a demolition worker lives so close to home he could walk there.”
“OK, we’re applying,” Colom told her. “We’re making that.”
The two stayed up all night to apply to the Oolite Arts’ Cinematic Arts Residency. It was the last application submitted.
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The result was Mountains, a feature film on gentrification in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood that Sorelle directed and co-wrote with Colom, the film’s producer. The response to her work has been overwhelmingly positive, as it has been featured and awarded in several major film festivals. Just last month, Sorelle was recognized at the Film Independent Spirit Awards when she won the Someone To Watch Award along with a $25,000 grant.
The award “recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition,” according to Film Independent. Sorelle, 34, who watched the Spirit Awards as a teenager, said she was deeply honored.
“’Mountains’ isn't a Hollywood film. It’s very much a Caribbean, Miami film. We made it for us by us,” said Sorelle, whose mother moved to Miami from Haiti in the ‘80s and worked in Little Haiti. “The fact that they can watch a film so steeped in Haitian-Miami culture and find beauty and something in it that resonates is really surprising and validating.”
The film follows the story of demolition worker Xavier (played by actor Atibon Nazaire), his wife Esperance and their adult son Junior. The family has outgrown their Little Haiti home and Xavier has his sights on buying a new house to “cash in on the American Dream,” Sorelle said. Xavier soon realizes that his work sites are inching closer and closer to his home, and his loyalties are tested.
Nazaire was nominated at the Spirit Awards for Best Breakthrough Performance alongside Dominic Sessa in Oscar-nominated film “The Holdovers” and Marshawn Lynch in “Bottoms.”
The film’s cast and crew are largely Caribbean and from Miami, said Sorelle. She estimates about 80 percent of the film is in Haitian Creole.
The film has been well received since its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last year. There, it was awarded a Special Jury Mention in the U.S. Narrative Feature competition. The film went on to win awards from a host of film festivals, including BlackStar, New Orleans Film Festival, Indie Memphis, New Hampshire Film Festival and more.
Following the film’s international debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, a Deadline reviewer wrote that “Mountains” reminded him of “two other landmark films” with similar themes: 2019’s “The Last Black Man In San Francisco” and 1960’s “A Raisin in the Sun,” staring groundbreaking actor Sidney Poitier. High praise, indeed.
Next month, the film has its homecoming when it screens at the Miami Film Festival. It’s competing for the festival’s Made in MIA award.
“It’s definitely a bit nerve-racking to share this work with everyone but only because I want to make sure they feel that I got it right,” Sorelle said. “I want everyone to feel as though they were reflected accurately and beautifully.”
Sorelle’s lifelong passion for film and childhood in the North Miami area has led to this moment. At age 10, she started reading scripts for fun. When she was 16, she took her first film class with the Florida Film Institute and continued to study filmmaking. She earned her Associate of Arts from Miami Dade College and later her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Central Florida in 2012.
When she moved back home, she got involved in making short films and worked on casting for the Oscar-winning film Moonlight, which was shot on location in Miami. It was on that set where she met future collaborators, like Colom.
For Sorelle, Mountains is more than a film, it’s an archive of what Little Haiti looks like today and a reminder of the Haitian community that built it. Sorelle said it’s high time for the Haitian diaspora to see themselves depicted in this way instead of harmful stereotypes, especially as their country roils from violence and political upheaval.
“To see Haitian culture on the screen, to see characters that are loving, regular, not gangsters, not in roles of servitude, is big for us,” she said. “It’s just been long overdue.”
This story was produced with financial support from individuals and Berkowitz Contemporary Arts in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
