Event

NYIHA Film Festival Presents: Under My Nails

NYIHA Film Festival
Presented with Dr. Steeve Coupeau

Under My Nails
Ari Maniel Cruz, 2012, 90 min, Puerto Rico
Under My Nails is a Puerto Rican psychological thriller written by Kisha Tikina Burgos who also starred in the film as Solimar, a longtime Puerto Rican immigrant living an isolated life as a manicurist under the overhead trains of the snow covered Bronx. Her character is born of traumathe film begins with an eerily cinematic suggestion of the violent deaths of both her mother and father. At her father's wake, another child releases a green lizard into Solimar's hair. This lizard haunts the narrative, lending an air of magical realism to this story.

Post screening Q&A with writer Kisha Tikina Burgos, director Ari Maniel Cruz and moderated by Dr. Steeve Coupeau, President NYIHA MEDIA.

NYIHA MEDIA promotes global aspirations for human rights beyond borders. By human rights we mean the right to food, shelter, water, health care, education, decent work, free speech, and justice and peace. Can solidarity allow us to think creatively about coming together within or across social formations to transcend the limitations of inherited oppositions between sovereignty and human rights? Global civic engagement might be the best means to achieve long-distance support for multiple citizen actions in different places. NYIHA is an African word for the bush and more broadly the borderlands. The nyiha are an ethnic and linguistic group spanning several countries including southwestern Tanzania and northeastern Zambia.