Tonight we screened a portion of my film El Espíritu de mi Mamá for those unfamiliar with my work.  I took the opportunity to describe the smallness of my filmmaking process for El Espíritu, how I had shot it mostly with a crew of 2, myself on camera and one other person on sound.  I also cited that the improvisational opportunities could be greater this time around.  Although the dialogue in El Espíritu was mostly improvised, I still had to limit the takes carefully since I was shooting on 16mm film.  We will be shooting this new movie on solid state high definition video, which should give us more performance allowances.

Ruben Reyes has already written one storyline scenario that could become a part of the film.  It is about a Garifuna man who comes to New York after having previously been active in fighting for land rights in his village in Honduras.  We did a table read of sections of Ruben’s story.

Juan Martinez felt connected to the story and sang a song inspired by the reading, accompanied by drumming. 

At the end of the evening, GAHFU Garifuna School dance instructor Luis Martinez showed a video “Garifuna Minerva” from the New York Garifuna Celebration, in which he himself performs.  It showed a great variety of Garifuna cultural dances ranging from death rites and rituals to warrior dances.