The Dominican Republic has selected Flor de Azúcar by Fernando Báez as its Oscar candidate for the foreign language film category, becoming the ninth entry from the Caribbean island to the Academy Awards with the hopes of earning its first nomination.
Set in the late forties in the sugar cane fields of the island and starring Héctor Aníbal, Ariana Lebrón and James Saintl, Flor de Azúcar follows the life of two peasants couples, one Dominican and the other from Haiti. Samuel, a young honest and moral Dominican peasant, faces the injustice of Trujillo’s dictatorship rules. Outraged by the abuse of a group of guards from the oppressive regime; unintentionally, he kills one of its members, event that forced him to flee and leave his wife Elena and children behind.
For a whole year he hides in a remote fishing island in the Caribbean Sea where he meets Maria Fernanda a beautiful native widow and her little daughter Maria. In a threat to begin a new relationship, he decides to return to his family but he doesn’t know what terrible things awaited him.
