By Samuel Brodsky
Dominican-American director Gabriella A. Moses is premiering her debut feature film Boca Chica in the International Narrative Competition at this month's 2023 edition of the Tribeca Festival. The coming-of-age drama tells the story of Desi (Scarlet Camilo), a 12-year-old who spends her days dreaming of becoming a famous singer, but her goal is threatened by lies, the ever-presence of child prostitution, and the looming sinister betrayal from those who should protect her most.
TropicalFRONT spoke with the filmmaker to discuss the process of making her film and the experience of returning to the Dominican Republic to realize her vision.
Where did the impetus to make the film come from? Did you draw inspiration from your own childhood experiences while developing the character of Desi?
Boca Chica came to me in a pretty kismet way. I went to New York University (NYU) for undergrad and after graduating, I went on to work in the art department and ended up production designing a lot of feature films. I met two producers on one of those projects that helped me develop a film called Leche that went to the Sundance Producing Lab, followed by a Screenwriters Intensive with a concept short, a folk horror film about Santeria, a young Dominican girl who is albino.
That was my life's work that I spent six years trying to finance in a hundred different places, and it was a project that got me a lot of attention in terms of excitement around it. In 2021, after the pandemic, we actually brought it to Tribeca for Untold Stories. And we were one of the projects selected to pitch for one million dollars and it felt like it was the moment, but we didn't get the money. During this little six-year process of trying to make that film, I had written another film set in the DR called El timbre de tu voz which received a lot of support as a script, about two sisters, one who is disabled, and had to do with sex tourism in the island.
So, I had these projects that I was like mounting as a writer, and in 2021, right around when we were pitching for Untold Stories, I got an email in my inbox from a producer named Sterlyn Ramirez, and she was in prep or in development early stages on a script called Boca Chica. She was looking for a Dominican or Dominican-American female director to direct this film.
In 2016, I worked as a volunteer at a girls’ foundation, the Mariposa Foundation, located on the north coast of the DR, and learned a lot more about sex tourism and the exploitation of minors. A lot of questions arose for me around like, okay, sex work can be empowering for some of these women in these situations because they're bringing money home to their families, but it's also incredibly oppressive and then it's incredibly dangerous when it comes to young underage girls where it's not legal. Obviously, it's a really messed up situation. So Sterlyn, my producer, had felt a connection and a need to tell that story as well. I got offered to direct Boca Chica, and it felt like a lot of worlds and themes and things were coming together. I've always loved coming-of-age stories, so I think that's why Sterlyn approached me.
Your grandparents and mother came from the Dominican Republic to New York City, and you were raised here in the United States. What compelled you to return to the Dominican Republic to make a film, and how did that experience feel upon returning and showing up with a camera crew?
I had lived in the DR for the first time for about two months when I worked at the Mariposa Foundation. I had spent a lot of time with my mom's Dominican family in New York, so all aspects of the culture have always been with me. I started having a stronger relationship to the country after college. But it was always really important to me to reconnect with my roots because my mom had lost her connection with the DR, and I have one because I'm a storyteller. I just wanted to go there and tell a story and that's why I wrote several films that deal with the DR. I had been building my relationship with the country and had written and developed projects that took place there, so I think Sterlyn saw that in me early on.
What was the casting process like for this film? Since the style of acting is very naturalistic, I’m curious if you did any street casting in the Dominican Republic, and if you spent a long time there finding the main character.
We scouted in Boca Chica and talked to members of the community. I met the rappers, the young kids that are in the film and on the scene, and was really adamant to cast them in the lead roles because of COVID, so we cast them remotely. I was a fan of some of the projects that our casting director Valerie Hernandez Oloffson had worked on. We we were looking for a young girl who could sing or have some sort of musical inclination. I also wanted to cast a young Afro-Latina. Scarlet had been a dancer since she was young, and she loved music, and I resonated with her in that. We styled her as our lead actor.
Boca Chica is predominantly black and is very mixed, as many Latin American countries are. My family is of every shade. But that community is much more composed of dark-skinned Dominicans, and I haven't seen a lot of that representation in film. I wanted to cast a young-black Dominican girl. We found Jean Cruz, who plays her brother, who was very dynamic on Skype and on Zoom and was incredible. He’s based in Madrid, where he’s been living since he was ten. So it was interesting building off of a diaspora and having these different talents come together. But because Desi and her brother's relationship with Fran was distant, it actually worked that we watched them kind of have this connection over Zoom, and we tried to build upon that impromptu to have them communicate and kind of share their lives with me and build this relationship as brother and sister who are, you know, worlds apart. But yeah, a lot of casting was done remotely.
A very present theme in the film is labor: sex work, restaurant work, and the tourism industry, they are all at the basis of the film and inform the world of Desi, who has artistic aspirations. Were these things you were thinking about while making the film?
The way that the Caribbean functions in America as a sort of tourist destination and that being the main source of income for the country creates significant tension. That economy keeps the country largely running in a large way, as well as agriculture, which products are exported to America. But how do you know when you're in that kind of situation? How do you see yourself as providing for others? And as an extension of that, how do those young girls see themselves, when they come of a certain age and are seen as something to be purchased, like something that can also be part of this paradise experience?
For Desi, it’s also about her opening her eyes to the reality of all of these other girls in the community who are a bit older as she comes of age. We did talk a lot about the politics and autonomy in the Dominican Republic, or in the Caribbean because obviously, it's about human trafficking. It's happening right here in the United States. And sex tourism is legal in parts of Asia, as well as other parts of the Caribbean, and Latin America, so it’s a global issue. It's interesting and important to have had those conversations early on. I was having these conversations with all of the actors as well when they were reading for the different parts.
How do you see your film fit in Dominican cinema today?
Boca Chica is part of a very exciting time for Dominican cinema. I know a lot of people doing incredible work, and it's a golden age for filmmakers. There's a docu-fiction hybrid film called Ramona that premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in the Generation section about young girls and teenage pregnancy in the DR. I just think that there are a number of creatives that are telling incredible stories that we haven’t heard before, and hopefully Boca Chica will go on to resonate within that body of work.
Boca Chica plays on Sunday, June 11; Monday, June 12; and Saturday, June 17 at the Tribeca Festival. It will also screen online between Monday, June 19, and Sunday, July 2. You can read more about the film and purchase tickets here.
