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Director's Statement

The project began as a personal exploration of my own origins, as an attempt to understand, if not answer, that eternally nagging, part-genetic and part-existential question: Who am I?

For Dominicans living on the island and abroad our heritage is a tricky, often controversial subject that itself often raises more questions than answers. The film takes a particular interest in Dominicans who in one way or another deny, ignore, or otherwise bypass issues of ancestry and race. There is an ongoing debate about whether or not the native Tainos were annihilated by the Spanish colonialists. We Dominicans romanticize the Taino heritage, but how much of them do we really have in our blood? Do our cherished self-ideals square with our actual genes, with historic fact? Meanwhile, how much our African heritage do we understand, or even acknowledge?

I took an impartial approach, with a goal of simply capturing what people have to say of their own origins. I discovered that very few can (or want to) accurately trace their ancestry. Their stories highlight the vagueness (sometimes intentional, sometimes deliberate) with which we Dominicans assess our identity. While asking questions, I thought a lot about the ways questions of history can uncomfortably press against our notions of identity and complicate how we understand and acknowledge our both our origins and ourselves.

Los Congo de Villa Mella is a 300 year old cofradia (Brotherhood) and one of the strongest manisfestations of the preservation of the African cultural roots and heritage. The Congos perform African derived drum centerd music, primarly during traditional religious feast days.

The Brotherhood of the Congos of the Holy Spirit was proclaimed a UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2001. In 2006, the Dominican government's Secretariat of Culture and the Museo del Hombre Dominicano, under the auspices of UNESCO, adopted a "Plan of Action" to protect and preserve the Cultural Space of the Brotherhood of the Congos of the Holy Spirit of Villa Mella.

Find Out More. Spanish version