‘Mountains’ Director Monica Sorelle On Displacement, Imagery And Miami’s Little Haiti

There’s more than one way to bring attention to the issue of generational displacement and gentrification. Filmmaker Monica Sorelle’s approach is to highlight the issues from behind the camera.

In her directorial debut, Mountains, the Miami-born creative gives the world a beautifully-shot film about a construction worker tasked with demolishing homes in his own Miami neighborhood, the vibrant Haitian-American enclave of Little Haiti. The nuanced story, which won a Special Jury Mention at the Tribeca Film Festival, uses one family to illustrate what happens to a minoritized community that is being pushed out of their 10-feet-above sea level, yet close to the ocean homes in a beach-front city that is looking to build on hurricane-safer land.

“This is a complex issue and it’s a complex city,” says Sorelle, who is Haitian-American. “And that’s the only way to tell a story like this. With a sense of real life realism. To delve into that complexity. I don’t have the answers for what we can do about this issue. It’s very much a main issue, but it’s happening globally. My goal was not to present a solution, but to kind of ask a lot of the questions that I’ve been asking for the entirety of my adult life.”

Audiences will leave the film feeling a plethora of emotions, and familiarity no matter where they live. The tacit acceptance of gentrification is part of the fabric of America. So is an understanding of what it’s like to be working class, raising a family and dealing with inter-ethnic struggles at work. Perhaps this shared understanding is is why Mountains won at Tribeca and snagged the Audience Award for best feature Narrative at Blackstar Film Festival, while also being an official selection of the Toronto International Film Festival.

At the same time, the film uplifts the heritage of South Florida’s diverse Caribbean communities while also pulling back the curtain on raising children between cultures, intersectional discrimination and showing how the thrill and expense of new construction impacts every hometown in America. Haitian-Creole is the dominant language, followed by Spanish. English brings up the rear. Lots of themes there, just like life.

“At one of our screenings, someone was like, ‘you have such an abstract ending.’ And I was like, did I? I think I said all I needed to say. But I realized it’s because we’re used to this kind of happy ending where everyone’s tied up and everything’s okay in the end.”

The film’s origin story blends activism with memory.

Years ago, Sorelle witnessed a demolition worker finish up his day tearing down a home, and then crossing the street to go into his own home. After talking with her friend and project partner (and eventual producer) Robert Colon about that scenario, she pitched the story to Oolite Arts as part of their grant program. And she won.

“I spent a lot of my childhood in Little Haiti, so when I came back from film school, I started quickly realizing that things were changing,” Sorelle explains. “I was alarmed by it. I wanted to do something about it, and I started trying to get into community organizing and joined nonprofits in order to sort of stop it from happening. And I quickly realized that, you know, community organizing was not my gift.”

She laughs.

“My gift was film and I just wanted to figure out a way to use film to sound the alarms.”

The idea and Oolight alligned.

“At that time, Oolight Arts was opening their applications for the first time to the Cinematic Arts residency,” says Sorelle, whose film experience includes serving as the head of background for Moonlight. “It was just striking to me because it was such a simple image that explained so much and said so much with so little.”

The $50,000 prize was one of the first that Oolight awarded. The arts organization, founded by Moonlight co-producer Andrew Hevia and O Cinema arthouse founder Kareem Tabsch, says their philanthropic investment in the Miami film community has paid off.

“She has gained a lot of recognition and success with this film,” says Hansel Porras Garcia, a former resident and current program manager of Oolight Arts. That she went from idea to a grand festival reception is remarkable, he adds. “The filmmakers don’t have to have a script. They just need an idea of a film, an idea that they should demonstrate to the jurors that they can make possible with the resources that we provide. That’s it. We just want the idea. And, there’s a very important question in the application process, which is, can you make, or how can you make this film with the provided resources?”

With Colon on board, the Mountains teammates delved into their own lived experiences, adding layers and nuance to the story. For example, with Cuban-American coworkers at the construction site, main character Xavier has to deal with significantly younger coworkers along with anti-Haitian sentiment and racially-derogatory language— gritty issues which aren’t often showcased when people imagine the glamour of Miami.

“My co-writer and producer Robert is Cuban. And, when we were building the story out, it was one of the things that I wanted to touch on, just ’cause it’s so specific to the experience of being Haitian in Miami,” Sorelle explains. “I think there’s definitely a privilege that has never been afforded to Haitians in the United States. And I think that it has been afforded to Cubans in this larger sort of political play. This leads to a sort of hierarchy of power within the city that is so obvious to anyone that’s there for any amount of time. I just wanted to touch on that and talk about that experience of being sort of in an immigrant city, but still not being afforded that access that other immigrants are.”

Ultimately Mountains leave the viewer with a lot to chew on. It’s one of those stories that is as American as apple pie. After all, nearly everyone can relate to being displaced or living in the hot neighborhood or not neighborhood.

The film also sends a clear message to the industry that the next gen of Miami film makers have something to say.

“I think we’re starting to build a future film culture,” says Sorelle. “A lot of us are of Caribbean descent, and that’s coming in through the storytelling.”

Cast: Mountains stars Atibon Nazaire as Xavier, his wife Esperance (Sheila Anozier) and their adult son Junior (Chris Renois.)