ROXFILM | Shorts: Looking Back/Tracing Family

MY DAD, GUYANA, AND ME
Directed by Noella Letitia Mingo (United Kingdom, 2025, 9:15).
One woman's voyage of discovery to understand her heritage and what makes somewhere truly home.

WITH GRACE
Directed by Dina Mwende, Julia Dahr (Kenya, Norway 2024, 29.34).
Grace, a witty 13-year-old girl, with big dreams and the rare gift of making everyone around her laugh, takes us back to her early childhood years with her close-knit, loving farmer family in Kenya: a time with lots of fun, but also a time when disaster almost split her family apart.

OUR LAST TIME
Directed by Jiayang Liu (USA 2026, 8:52).
After a college student returns to China and his grandparents, he begins exploring the idea of death in an introspective journey to understand what it means to exist.

CÂNDIDA
Directed by Rosalyn Negrón (USA 2025, 45:00).
Candida is the story of Candida Rose Baptista, second-generation Cape Verdean American singer and songwriter who returns to Cape Verde to explore traditional Cape Verdean music and its influence beyond the archipelago nation. Traveling throughout the islands of Cape Verde, Candida visits musicians and immerses in the nation’s history and culture. Set in the backdrop of Cape Verde’s stunning landscape, her journey takes her to the island of Brava, home of her ancestors. Both a homecoming and a musical education, Candida weaves in Cape Verdean music, featuring Candida’s own powerful and honeyed voice, to explore themes of identity, longing, belonging, and the joy and melancholy that marks Cape Verdean music as one of the most evocative musical genres in the world.
Local. English subtitles for Cape Verdean dialogue.

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Host or Publisher The Roxbury International Film Festival