Find Me At The Dinner Table
Documentary
FILM SYNOPSIS
Feeling disconnected from her family and their Caribbean cultural roots motivates filmmaker Samantha Alvarez to creatively use food and art to preserve their legacies.
Her free-spirited Puerto Rican Tia Abuela, Alaida, invites her down memory lane in the kitchen: the heart of the house. This inspires Samantha's painting to reunite her family at the dinner table.
CREDITS
a film by Samantha Alvarez
*Dedicated to my Puerto Rican grandmother Maria Toro
CAST
Alaida Toro – Tía Abuela
Angela Rodriguez – Dominican Grandmother
Maria Jusino – Mother
Samantha Alvarez – As herself
CREW
Directed and Shot by Samantha Alvarez
Sound Operator – Maria Jusino
SPECIAL THANKS
Flora Lennihan, Andrea Weiss, Antonio Tibaldi, Sean Josahi Brown, CCNY Rentals Team
DIRECTOR
Samantha Alvarez
BIO
Samantha Alvarez is a multidisciplinary artist who mixes mediums to tell stories that work to inspire humans to reflect on the relationships with themselves and the world around them. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film & Video Production from CUNY City College and is a 2021-2022 alumni of the Bronx Documentary Center Films Fellowship and Third World Newsreel Production Workshop.
Her BFA thesis documentary In The Body was recognized with six awards including the 2022 NYWIFT Outstanding Female Content Creator Award. Samantha currently holds a certification for IATSE Local 829 USA Scenic Training and is completing her studies at the City Film MFA program at CCNY.