Our Piece of Land (2023)
Our Piece of Land is a short film made by students at UPRM enrolled in documentary filmmaking courses (CINE 4016) taught by award-winning filmmaker Guillermo Gómez Álvarez in the 2022-23 academic year.
Using historic footage from the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture to support contemporary interviews with farmers, mutual aid organizers, and government officials, this film explores the problem of food insecurity in the Puerto Rican archipelago in the years since Hurricane María made landfall. These interviews with professionals in the food industry and community leaders provide insight into the gravity of food insecurity during and after catastrophe with a focus on the ways in which stratified disasters comprised of hurricanes, earthquakes, and the global pandemic—interwoven within the contexts of a complicated economic and political landscape—further eroded an already unstable local food system on the agrarian, production, and distribution levels.
Stemming from a series of oral history interviews with the leaders of mutual aid organizations tied to food distribution that served communities in the aftermath of Hurricane María and then had to adapt to the new needs of COVID-19, Our Piece of Land is a documentary for anybody interested in sustainable agriculture, climate and social justice, and the future of Puerto Rico and other communities facing climate change. Click here to request information about screening this film.
Our Piece of Land has received an Honorable Mention Award at the Vieques Film and Human Rights Festival; is one of the inaugural documentary films produced by the Oral History Lab and received generous funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
