Miami Filmmaker’s ‘Mountains’ Shot In Little Haiti Gets Nationwide Release

Shot in Little Haiti, Monica Sorelle’s “Mountains” gets its U.S. film debut at the Coral Gables Art Cinema on Friday, Aug. 16, where it will have a week-long run before getting a nationwide release. (Photo courtesy of Music Box Films)

After pounding the pavement and entering their film, “Mountains,” in festivals from Canada to New York to Miami (the Toronto Film Festival, New York’s Tribeca, and the Miami International Film Festival, among others), there is more on the horizon for Monica Sorelle, director and co-writer, and Robert Colom, producer and co-writer.

“Mountains,” shot on location in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, has been picked up by Music Box Films, a distributor of international and independent films. It gets its United States theatrical debut on Friday, Aug. 16 at Coral Gables Art Cinema with a red carpet opening before a rollout that will continue across the United States. It also opens at O Cinema South Beach on Friday, Aug. 30.

Atibon Nazaire as Xavier in Monica Sorelle’s “Mountains,” shot in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. (Photo courtesy of Music Box Films)

“Mountains” looks at the gentrification of Little Haiti through the lens of an immigrant who works on a demolition crew that is tearing down neighborhood homes to make way for high rises and other modern developments.

Xavier (so authentically played by actor Atibon Nazaire) is working hard to realize the American dream. As he and his family, his wife Esperance (Sheila Anozier) and adult son Junior (Chris Renois, a stand-up comic from Miramar), outgrow their Little Haiti home, Xavier sets his sights on a new house nearby. Soon he realizes that his work and his dreams are on a collision course.

The film was born after Sorelle was selected in 2019, the first year of Miami’s Oolite Arts’ Cinematic Arts Residency. The idea of the residency is for local filmmakers to create their films without having to leave the area. Those selected receive a grant of $50,000 for the creation of the movie as well as access to other benefits of the residency.

“It gave us a lot of freedom to write the script,” says Sorelle, who met her co-writer when both were working on the production crew of the Oscar-winning-shot-in-Miami film “Moonlight.”

In a scene from “Mountains,” Xavier (Atibon Nazaire) and Esperance (Sheila Anozier) sit in the yard of their dream house. (Photo courtesy of Music Box Films)

“Robert and I wrote (‘Mountains’) the whole first year of the residency. It was nice to be surrounded by a community in that way and to have access to mentors was really great.”

She says when the opportunity to make the film became a reality, it was more about creating it for herself. “I didn’t think anyone would want to see my little movie and so to have it validated outside of Miami has been a privilege.”

The movie is multi-layered – about the gentrification of neighborhoods originally made desirable by the very people who get pushed out of them, generational gaps between immigrants and their American-born children, race wars between cultures, and the universal feeling of being displaced.

Producer and co-writer Robert Colom, left, with director and co-writer Monica Sorelle. (Photo by Aaron Kudja, courtesy of Music Box Films)

Most of the dialogue in “Mountains” is in Creole with subtitles that aren’t intrusive but guide the moviegoer, which brings a closeness in the viewer’s relationship to the lives and experiences of Xavier and Esperance. “Language and how language is expressed was a really important part of the film,” says Sorelle.

Renois, appearing in his first feature film, says “Mountains” has helped him expand his career.

“I think I was part of the first generation that could openly be proud about their Haitian heritage,” says Renois, who plays Junior. “I’m familiar with the stories of the people who grew up in the late ’80s or early ’90s and the bullying that they had to take on in school or in places of work.”

In his first feature film role, Chris Renois, a stand-up comic from Miramar, stars as Junior. (Photo courtesy of Music Box Films)

In the film, Renois as Junior sneaks off nightly to a comedy club (the movie’s location is the real Villian Theater on NE 2nd Ave. in Little Haiti) where he’s able to unleash stories on stage shrouded in comedy about his immigrant parents. But Renois’ own comedy hadn’t previously touched on the Haitian experience.

“I stayed away from doing Haitian comedy, not because I was afraid of it – about letting people know I was Haitian – but because I didn’t want to put myself in a box. I had challenged myself to be broader in that regard. I think this move gave me the first opportunity to really explore that side of my life and since then I’ve been writing more about my own experience growing up in a Haitian household.”

Growing up Cuban in Miami for Colom also brought another element into the film – a scene where Xavier overhears his Cuban co-workers disparaging members of the demo crew who are Haitian.

“We were always kind of sharing what the Haitian experience versus the Cuban experience in Miami – the historical discrepancies between the two,” says Sorelle, who is Haitian-American but grew up in a different part of Miami other than Little Haiti. Her mother, however, worked in the neighborhood.

Dancer, choreographer, singer and visual artist, Sheila Anozier plays Esperance in Monica Sorelle’s “Mountains,” now getting a nationwide release by Music Box Films. (Photo courtesy of Music Box Films)

“My mother would talk about her interactions with her Cuban co-workers and Robert was very open to having that dialogue – critiquing the power dynamics in this city when it comes to these two immigrant groups and the underbelly of racism happening within the community.”

While there are so many layers in “Mountains,” the filmmakers say they made sure nothing was heavy handed. “We really tried to pack the film with everything that Monica and I criticize about the city every day and everything that we love about the city every day for the last 8 to 10 years of our friendship,” says Colom. “We tried to do it subtly, so we don’t try to make a meal out of any one of those situations. We are still critical to this place that we love and that we can be critical because we have such a close connection to it.”

With Music Box Films now as its partner and the film playing everywhere from Illinois to Iowa and West Hollywood to Brooklyn, N.Y., there is much moviegoers will relate to about the human condition.

Xavier (Atibon Nazaire) and Esperance (Sheila Anozier) share a dance in “Mountains,” a made-in-Miami movie getting a nationwide release. (Photo courtesy of Music Box Films)

“I do think that ‘Mountains’ is a film that the closer you are to it culturally the richer the experience of watching it is,” says Colom. “If you are from Miami, you understand it and to a certain degree and if you’re Haitian, you understand it to an even further degree. If you’re Hispanic, you may relate to it in a different way. And for millennials, and I believe it is what Chris was so wonderfully able to convey in his performance, who have immigrant parents, will also relate to it in yet another way. This is what makes the film feel so very personal.”

The title of the movie is also personal. “Proverbs are big in Haitian culture,” shares Sorelle. She’s placed a Haitian proverb – “Behind mountains, there are more mountains,” at the beginning of “Mountains.” The meaning has as many layers as the film itself.

She conveys her view of the many interpretations that can be taken from the proverb: The struggle of figuring things out, then more and more to figure out, a positive interpretation of what can lie behind a horizon, and the Sisyphean journey the working-class immigrant in America feels. “Where you try to roll this ball up the mountain, but there’s always something that knocks you down.”

WHAT: “Mountains,” a film by Monica Sorelle

WHERE: Coral Gables Art Cinema, 260 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables

WHEN: Opens Friday, Aug. 16, 3:30 p.m., regular screening, red carpet opening night event, 6:30 p.m., screening at 7:30 p.m., question and after session following the film, also Q&A following screening at 5:15 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 17 and 4:15 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 18.

COST: $21.75, opening night red-carpet event; $12.75, regular admission, $11, senior, student and military, $8 member price.

 INFORMATION: (786) 472-2249 or gablescinema.com.

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