CONTINUED JOURNEY “BORICUA SOY YO”

September 1, 2024 Buffalo Latino Village

It’s been a while since I’ve written about my film “Boricua Soy Yo.” However, over the last few weeks, I’ve had some positive news regarding this project.

Although my film has been available on a few streamers, Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, and Plex among others, in late July, I was very proud to have my film be one of the first films offered with the launch of the new streaming platform for A+. Avenida Productions is the studio behind A+ streaming and this new platform celebrates U.S. Latino stories, offering movies, shows, and documentary films that focus on our stories. The platform’s motto is “American Heart, Latino Soul,” and I recommend you all download the app and support this new service. A+ is available on AppleTV, IOS, Roku, FireTV, Android, and through your browser at https://watchaplus.tv/home. You can watch for free with ads, or pay a small monthly fee to stream ad-free.

Let us support our own and help this new platform grow!

Upcoming screening event: Having completed “Boricua Soy Yo” over two years ago, I’m still proud of the feedback it continues to receive as well as the attention it continues to grow. Last year in September, I had the pleasure of presenting my film at Canisius University in a free public screening hosted by the Western New York Peace Center in conjunction with the Latin American Solidarity Committee of Western New York as part of their monthly “Coffee House” events.

Looking back at this screening, it was a humbling experience, as I sat with folks and observed the audience, watching them watch my film. Regardless of how often I’ve been part of a screening event for one of my documentary projects, the nervous, uneasy feeling one gets as a crowd is watching something you poured eighteen months of one’s life on never gets easy. Although the audience that joined me on this night was not as large as the three-hundred-person audience that first joined me when I first screened it at the Dr. Phillips Center in downtown Orlando in April of 2022 for the UCF Celebrate the Arts screening, the fact that this was being screened in my own hometown of Buffalo, NY made it all the more special.

After that screening event at Canisius University, I was approached by Dr. Marko Militech, a professor of the Modern and Classical Language Department at Buffalo State University who teaches courses in Spanish, translation, and interpretation, as well as the culture and civilization of Latin America and Spain. Dr. Militech shared positive feedback on my film and asked if I would be interested in screening “Boricua Soy Yo” at Buffalo State University’s Hispanic History Month celebration events the following year.

Fast forward almost a full year and here we are set

and ready to screen “Boricua Soy Yo” on Friday, September 20th at 6:00 p.m. at the Jacqueline Vito LoRusso Alumni and Visitor Center at Buffalo State University.

I anticipate I will again be full of nerves as I sit in the audience watching, I invite you all to attend this free screening. Seating will be limited but I look forward to seeing you there and hope you engage with me at the end of the screening for a short Q&A segment.

While I’m still in the early steps, after a few false starts, of my next documentary project (one that investigates our city’s history), I’m still very proud of the work I did on “Boricua Soy Yo” and hope to continue presenting this film, in other platforms should the opportunity present itself.

I hope to see you there on September 20th at Buffalo State University at 6 pm.