Mi casa my home trilogy


“Mi Casa My Home,” is a documentary project that explores the notion of home when is affected by migration between countries with different opportunities to access to economical and social conditions. It centers its attention on stories of migrants who, from within their host country and financed by their remittances, construct their dream homes in their country of origin. Many of these houses stand incomplete, some derelict, and many stand uninhabited for years, large-scale containers of the deferred dream of returning and a visual testament to an illusory economic viability.

 “Mi Casa My Home” asks: What is the metaphoric significance of these edifices? How does one’s definition of “home” or sense of self change throughout the migration experience? In what ways do the houses respond to or withstand changing political and economic conditions? And given these ongoing conditions of flux, is it ever possible for emigres to fulfill the dream of returning?
“Mi Casa My Home” aims to capture the sheer breadth of this phenomenon with two documentaries, “The House of Mama Icha” and “Absentees’ House”; and through an interactive platform as a tool for reflection, calling attention and poetic translation of this global phenomenon of uninhabited remittance houses.
 
WORKSHOPS AND MARKETS:
  • Docs Forum, International Documentary Film Festival of Mexico City –DocsMX- (Absentees’ House)
  • DocMontevideo Pitching Series, 2016 (Mi Casa My Home)
  • DocuLab.8, Guadalajara International Film Festival, Mexico, 2016 (The House of Mama Icha)
  • Cartagena International Film Festival, Documentary Workshop, Colombia, 2016 (The House of Mama Icha)
  • Spotlight on Documentaries-Independent Film Program Week, IFP, New York, 2015 (The House of Mama Icha)
  • HackaDoc Worshop, International Documentary Film Festival, DocsBarceloma+Medellin, 2015 (Interactive platform)
  • International Documentary Film Festival DocsBarcelona+Medellin, 2014 (The House of Mama Icha)
 
AWARDS / RECOGNITIONS
  • Postproduction Grant from the Comisión Fílmica Medellín 2017 (The House of Mama Icha)
  • Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Grant to individuals (USA) 2017 (Absentees' House)
  • SeirenFilms Award, a mentorship for the transmedia development of Mi Casa My Home, DocMontevideo, 2016
  • Centro Atico, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Postproduction Grant, 2016 (The House of Mama Icha).
  • Colombian Film Fund for Short Documentary Production, FDC-Proimagenes, 2014 (The House of Mama Icha)
 
ART RESIDENCIES:
  • Art Residency by Espacio-Arte, Medellin, Colombia, 2016 (Mi Casa My Home)
  • Art Residency in Mexico given by the Ministerio de Cultura of Colombia and the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes de México (FONCA), 2014, (Absentees’ House)