Experience curated screenings from the Library's 16mm film collection and participate in guided discussions about film, history, and archives. Local filmmaker Diana Larrera will join us to screen her short film, Querido Pequeño Haiti. For more information, please contact the library at 305-375-5572 or specialcollections@mdpls.org. All ages.
About QUERIDO PEQUEÑO HAITI
“Querido Pequeño Haiti” is an experimental documentary, a love letter to a place that will forever be home, a visual ode, and a farewell to a neighborhood that is rapidly changing due to the forces of gentrification and Miami’s housing crisis.
From the gaze of a Peruvian resident who lived in Little Haiti, the film juxtaposes personal images documented over the past eight years with the new developments in the community. It is a letter to the Haitian and Latinx communities, who are homesick but try to find themselves in every other culture in hopes of belonging to a place and making it home.
About the Filmmaker
Diana Larrea is a Peruvian award-winning documentary filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist based in Miami, FL, and Cusco, Perú. She is currently a resident artist at Oolite Arts and in pre-production for her short film “Hatun Sonqo,” a documentary dedicated to preserving indigenous languages and heritage in South Florida. Her latest experimental film, “Querido Pequeño Haiti”, premiered at this year’s Miami Film Festival, screening at the legendary Adrienne Arsht Center. “Monarcas”, her directorial debut, won best documentary at the Highland Park Independent Film Festival.
Diana has also lent her editing skills to various projects, including "Madame Pipi" (2021), "Birthright" (2021), and the Emmy-winning documentary, “Six Degrees of Immigration” (2019).
Throughout the past decade, Diana has collaborated with Miami artists, capturing their essence through intimate portraits while documenting communities grappling with the effects of development and gentrification. With an Associate's degree in Film Production from Miami-Dade College, she began her career as an editor for TV stations and institutions. Diana aims to portray and empower the immigrant experience through her work poetically.
About the Division of Special Collections & Archives
Miami-Dade Public Library System’s Division of Special Collections & Archives holds rare and irreplaceable historical documents for the benefit of the public and scholarly community. They oversee the Helen Muir Florida Collection, 16mm Film Collection, Cuban Collection of Rare Books & Ephemera, Genealogy Collection, Vasari Project, and rare & antiquarian books from as early as the 17th century. The Division's primary goal is to provide the public with the contents of the vault at their request. Its collections include rare books, original manuscripts, over 18,000 photographs, prints, artifacts, audiovisual resources, and electronic media.
About the Film Collection
The 16mm film collection has been part of the Library's holdings for over 55 years. Its first films were part of the City of Miami’s public library and began in the 1960s before there was a county library. When MDPLS was formed, the County supplemented its local funding for films with Federal LSCA grants (Library Services and Construction Act). Apart from leased feature films, all films were purchased for free exhibition for the life of the print. Subjects within the collection include experimental/avant-garde art films, non-narrated films, children’s films, Black history, Floridiana, and local history. Today, there are over 4,000 films within the collection.
AGE GROUP: | All Ages |
EVENT TYPE: | Special Event | Special Collections | Performances & Presentations | Movies | In-Person | History |