Genre
Synopsis
The feature documentary UNTITLED: U.S. ISLAND TERRITORIES PROJECT will be composed of evocative vignettes featuring female and non- binary grassroots advocates on the frontlines of the food sovereignty movement in four of the U.S. island territories.
In Puerto Rico, we see young entrepreneur Crystal Diaz making a delivery to a high profile and trending restaurant in the capitol of San Juan, dropping off locally grown fruits and vegetables that are indigenous to the island- all through the app she developed to bring farm to table.
Next, Tara Rodriguez Besosa, is harvesting breadfruit with other members of the queer collective homestead, OtraCosa on a lush mountainside on the island. Then, we are at Departamento de la Comida where volunteers are looking through the native seed library and discussing viable options for their farm.
In Guam, farming advocate, educator, and indigenous Chamorro Ursula Herrera teaches a class on growing indigenous fruit to elementary school children. In the Northern Mariana Islands, Rica Dela Cruz (PhD Candidate at the University of Hawai’i and Researcher at Children's Healthy Living Center of Excellence) conducts field research on obesity in a small local village. And back in the Caribbean, Sommer Sibilly, a local leader in the food sovereignty movement in the U.S. Virgin Islands, checks in with local farmers and producers and helps them with strategizing the sale of their upcoming crops.
These are all community leaders and organizations dedicated to the food sovereignty movement. As declared by attendees of the first global forum on food sovereignty in 2007 in Mali:
“Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.”
And islanders would add, the right to produce that food - and not wait weeks or months for it to arrive on a ship- for the health of the people, their island, and the planet.
Bio
Cionín is a two-time Imagen Award winning Latina filmmaker from Brooklyn, New York, and recently was the Showrunner on two Peacock/T+ unscripted series. She started her career at MTV Networks where for over 15 years she worked with numerous celebrities on programming for MTV News & Docs, MTV International, MTV Latin America and MTV tr3s, including as Director of two short documentaries on Shakira, and Director of MTV Cribs for 5 years. Later, as Supervising Producer, she oversaw a team of 40+ on the spin-off Teen Cribs, running the production of 70 episodes that were produced within three years. Afterwards, she worked as the Senior Production Coordinator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she was the liaison for TV productions, filmmakers, still photographers and artists who filmed at the museum such as illustrator and author Maira Kalman, fashion designer Zac Posen, film director Peter Bogdanovich and photographer Mary McCartney. Recently, she was the story producer of the 2022 Imagen Award winning short film Lights, Camera Acción for American Masters (PBS) and the 2019 Imagen Award winning PBS Great Performances documentary John Leguizamo’s Road to Broadway. She is currently directing two feature documentary films while developing and consulting on content that touches upon climate change, disabilities, and the arts.
