Toronto International Film Festival: Leticia Tonos Paniagua's surprise feature, Cristo Rey

by Kyna Morgan

Q&A panel following the screening of Leticia Tonos' "Cristo Rey": (left to right) TIFF moderator; Ron Deibert of the Munk School of Global Affairs; actor James Saintil; actor Yasser Michelén; TIFF interpreter

One of the best things about attending a film festival, especially one as large, renowned, and dedicated to showcasing global talent as the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), is the surprises.  When Cameron Bailey, the Artistic Director of TIFF, introduced Leticia Tonos Paniagua's feature film, Cristo Rey, he said that while TIFF usually has a good handle on what films will be submitted because they track their development and status, the programmers were actually very surprised to receive the submission of Cristo Rey.  They had heard nothing about this film, and they knew they had to make it an official selection.  Directed and co-written by Leticia Tonos Paniagua, it tackles an incredibly sensitive topic within her native Dominican Republic, and also within Haiti, that of the immigration of Haitian immigrants to the D.R.  The subtitle of the film is "Una isla...dos mundos" (One island...two worlds), and that is just what Tonos shows us.  Leticia Tonos Paniagua is the first Dominican woman to direct a feature film in the Dominican Republic.

A reimagining of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Tonos takes us on a fast-paced, poetic adventure through crime, a culturally and racially mixed family, an interracial romance, and the life of a man torn between two worlds.  The title, Cristo Rey, is actually a real place in the D.R., a true barrio just as you see in the film.  Janvier (played by James Saintil), is Haitian-Dominican, born of a Haitian immigrant mother and a Dominican father.  He has legal status in the D.R., but his mother is deported due to a confrontation with police who are violently raiding a Haitian neighborhood in the beginning of the film.  He is skilled at fixing things, but there is little work to be found.  His half-brother, Rudy (played by Yasser Michelén), born of a Dominican mother and sharing the same father as Janvier, is lost, confused, unemployed and has been expelled from school.  He wants to change his situation and wants to hold on to his ex-girlfriend, Jocelyn (played by Akari Endo).  Hired by Jocelyn's gangster brother, El Bacá (played by Leonardo Vasquez), for whom the police are always looking, Janvier becomes her bodyguard, and they quickly fall deeply in love.  Finding this out, Rudy becomes even more resentful of Janvier and angry, inserting himself into a gangster-type lifestyle to steal a shipment of drugs from El Bacá in order to set up Janvier to be killed.  Jocelyn and Janvier only want to be together and plan to run away, but Janvier is detained by El Bacá's henchman, Pedro Lee (played by Moisés Trinidad), who is certain that it was Janvier who stole the drugs to sell himself.  Meanwhile, Rudy has been in cahoots with the police as part of his plan to set up Janvier.  Jocelyn is determined to leave with Janvier, but everything does not end up as planned.  Saintil's performance as "Janvier" is contemplative, masking extraordinary pain while Janvier attempts to live an honest life despite the injustices visited upon him.  Michelén delivers nothing less than an inspired performance as "Rudy," a young man raging against the quiet hellishness of his life. 

Actors James Saintil (left) and Yasser Michelén (right) answering questions during the Q & A

In my ranting and raving on Twitter about how perfect this film is, I called it poetic and lyrical, and it really is that.  Starting off the film with an impromptu street performance using buckets, sticks, and whatever else the passers-by on the street could find, Tonos propels the audience through the rough and desperate, yet oddly beautiful neighborhood of Cristo Rey and the lives of its inhabitants.  Taking us on a whirlwind journey, she deftly manages to also make us understand the depths of racism and xenophobia on this island that is made up of two worlds, the Haitian world and the Dominican world.

After the film, TIFF held an extended Q & A with the lead actors, James Saintil ("Janvier") and Yasser Michelén ("Rudy"), which was preceded by a video from the director, Leticia Tonos Paniagua.  Now nine months pregnant, she was unable to be in attendance, but shared why she wanted to make the film and why it is important, points later reiterated by both Saintil and Michelén.  Tonos made a comment which I found surprising, that the Dominican Republic did not achieve its independence from Spain, but rather from Haiti.  This fact makes the issue of immigration more immediate and understandable as a major point of contention in Cristo Rey.  Throughout the panel, which also included Ron Deibert, Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs here in Toronto, the guests revisited the issue of racism again and again.  To demonstrate the depths of racism experienced even on the set of the film, Yasser Michelén told of technicians on the film crew asking him how he could even want to kiss Akari Endo (playing "Jocelyn") after James Saintil, a black man (playing "Janvier"), had kissed her.  This obviously was shocking and saddening to the actors, and I'm sure to the director, but it's a reality with which they live and a reality experienced in the Dominican Republic.  Tonos, Saintil and Michelén all made it clear that this must change, and that they hope that Cristo Rey can be a part of that positive change to defeat racism.

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During the discussion of racism, a point was made by the actors that classism is also present in the discrimination against Haitians.  Wealthy Haitians are not subject to the same type, or extent, of discrimination that poor or working class Haitians suffer in the D.R.  They also discussed how what the audience sees on screen while watching lives play out in the film Cristo Rey, is the actual reality of the real neighborhood of Cristo Rey.  The production team even had to hire younger members of gangs within Cristo Rey to protect them, in effect working with the local mafia in order to maintain protection for the cast, crew and equipment.  Both Saintil and Michelén made clear that the laws of the Dominican Republic don't apply in Cristo Rey.  Apparently, if you want to know what life in Cristo Rey is like, just watch Tonos' film!

I love this film.  Tonos has created a film that is aesthetically beautiful, painfully honest and stunningly brave.

Cristo Rey is distributed by the French distributor Equation.

Follow the film on Twitter @CristoReyMovie

Find the director, Leticia Tonos, on Facebook at leticia.t.paniagua

Follow Akari Endo ("Jocelyn") on Twitter @AkariEndo

"The Making of Cristo Rey"
(video in Spanish with French subtitles)