The regional main campus of the UASD in Higüey tonight will host the gala opening of the II Dominican Global Film Festival which will last until Sunday November 23.

Representatives of local authorities headed by officials from the Ministry of Culture in the region, CURE and members of the private sector and civil society will attend this event. Following the showing of the film Teo´s Journey, they will all have the opportunity to meet with the film´s producer, Lourdes García, and child actor Erick Cañete.

Teo´s Journey is a moving story of friendship between two boys trapped on the border between the United States and Mexico. They are searching for Teo´s missing father which means they will have to cross the desert on their own. Teo, who is 12, travels toward an uncertain destiny with his father whom he had never seen until he showed up one day in the kitchen to take him away. The father and son illegally cross the border with the help of an unscrupulous coyote.

At night, they are attacked and robbed. Teo manages to escape and runs away, leaving the group and his father behind. Chuy, a coyote also 12-years-old, finds Teo and helps him out of the desert. Teo has no other alternative than to wait for his father at the security post on the Mexican side of the border where deportees re-enter the country. Day after day, he witnesses the failed attempts of men and women being returned to Mexico. Meanwhile a strong friendship is forged between the two boys.

Teo´s Journey premiered at the Guadalajara Film Festival.

Unique Festival

In the days leading up to this event, Natasha Despotovic, General Director of the Film Festival, noted that although there are countless film festivals of different size and importance, with different themes and genres, the Dominican Global Film Festival is unique among them all for various reasons. “It is the only festival that shows films simultaneously in five cities throughout the entire country; it is the only one that takes the films to public university auditoriums and that works directly with the schools.”

Asunción Sanz, Promotion and Marketing Director of the Festival, stressed that the main goal of the festival is to be inclusive so that as many citizens as possible can participate regardless of where they are in the country. “In this spirit, we want all Dominicans to have first hand access to the protagonists of this event. We want people to see for themselves, not be told secondhand, but see for themselves, to decide and form their own opinions according to their own criteria.”