Monica Sorelle

Photo: Michelle Lisa Polissaint

Florida-based CCI Artist Fellow Monica Sorelle expanded her project Reeds/Wozo, a collection of works utilizing video, photography, and sculpture to illustrate the history of Haitian people, specifically women, as the poto mitan (pillars of society), despite the weight of political and international pressure on the island. A Haitian-American filmmaker and artist, Sorelle marries her experiences as a diasporic Caribbean woman living in Miami with those of women on the island, examining the cultural distinctions and parallels brought on by neocolonization, migration, and subsequent assimilation. Reeds/Wozo comments on colonization, imperialism, labor, and the reverberations of revolution.

Monica Sorelle is a Haitian American filmmaker and photographer born and based in Miami. She has produced and worked as department head on projects for Film Independent, A24, HBO, and PBS. Sorelle is a member of Third Horizon, a creative collective dedicated to developing, producing, exhibiting, and distributing work that gives voice to stories of the Caribbean, its diaspora, and other marginalized and underrepresented spaces in the Global South. She is currently Associate Director, Programs & Industry for the collective’s flagship initiative Third Horizon Film Festival. She was an inaugural fellow of the New Orleans Film Society’s Southern Producers Lab in 2018. Her latest produced project, T (directed by Keisha Rae Witherspoon), was acquired by the Criterion Channel, screened at Sundance Film Festival, and awarded the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at Berlinale. It received additional awards at the Miami Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, and BlackStar Film Festival. Sorelle was named a Cinematic Arts Resident at Oolite Arts (2019), where she is completing post-production on her feature film Mountains.

The 2021 Florida-based Artist Fellowship was presented in collaboration with Bakehouse Art Complex.