Santo Domingo Waltz

(Vals de Santo Domingo)

Tatiana Fernández Geara / Dominican Republic / 2021 / 76 min
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  • Guadalajara Int'l Film Festival

    Honorable Mention, Ibero-American Documentary Feature

  • Dominican Film Festival in New York

    Best Documentary

  • Ibero-Latin American Film Festival in Trieste

  • Nouvelles Vues Haiti Film Festival

  • Nouveaux Regards Film Festival

  • Festi’Danses

    Best Documentary

  • Trinidad & Tobago Int'l Film Festival

  • Santo Domingo Global Film Festival

  • Panama Int'l Film Festival

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Spanish with English subtitles

With Raymundo Antonio Rodríguez Roa, Angel Emmanuel Pascual, Víctor Angel de Jesús Abad

An exploration of machismo culture through the eyes of three teen ballet students in the Dominican Republic. Raymundo, Angel, and Victor, the only boys in a class of twenty dancers, are determined to pursue their passion for ballet in a society where dance is predominantly seen as a female activity. By following their dreams, they challenge traditional gender roles and entrenched cultural norms.

The film, much like a waltz—a dance performed in triple time—takes us through the lives of these three boys as they navigate the streets of Santo Domingo. Along the way, they confront and occasionally conform to the pervasive machismo culture, exploring both prejudice in Dominican society and within themselves.

Santo Domingo Waltz undresses the deeply ingrained societal shortcomings, revealing how these have shaped behavior and thought for generations. Through the perspectives of these three young dancers, we gain insight into the broader thinking and actions of an entire society.

Press

“Tatiana Fernández Geara knows poetry. Her three protagonists move through their own worlds in a wild way, even wilder than Santo Domingo itself, and they all know how to find the best lyrics, smiles, and the most honest cheekiness one has ever seen on the big screen.” – Miguel D. Mena, Acento

“Tatiana Fernández Geara has found a way to touch the most sensitive nerves of this half-island.” – Hugo Pagan Soto, The Last Movie Guy

About the Director
Tatiana Fernández Geara is a freelance photojournalist and documentary filmmaker. She studied Advertising Communications in her hometown of Santo Domingo. She later earned a Fulbright scholarship to get her Master’s degree in Photojournalism at the University of Missouri. While a student there, she started a multimedia project about the lives of Dominican nannies, which would later become her first documentary feature, “Nana”, motivating her to pursue a career as a filmmaker. “Santo Domingo Waltz” is her second feature, followed by “I am my Grandma’s Granddaughter”. She also works as a freelance photojournalist for international media outlets.
Notes on Film

“Since I was a young girl, I’ve had trouble listening to phrases that start out with “Girls can’t…”

When I was 14, I spoke to the P.E. teacher about signing up for basketball practice. Back then, there was only one basketball team, and it was just for boys. Although my pink bedroom walls were decorated with Michael Jordan posters and I stayed after school at all their practices, I was never officially part of the team. In the eighth grade my afternoons were spent playing basketball with only boys or taking ballet lessons with only girls. I had been dancing since the first grade.

I spent most of my teenage years and adult life arguing with people – like my mother – about why others were allowed to do things I was not allowed to do just because I was a girl. I envied my brother’s freedom.

I ended up studying photojournalism, a career where women are in the minority, and eventually became a documentary filmmaker. After working on my first film “Nana”, one of the things that struck me the most was how the machismo culture had affected the lives of all the women in the documentary. And on the opening night, before going up to the microphone to say a few words to the audience, I asked my boyfriend at the time to please hold my purse. His response: “No. Give it to your mom. Men don’t hold purses.”

The machismo culture has permeated my entire life in the Dominican Republic. Seeing these three characters – 14 and 15 years old – dealing with the same kind of discrimination I dealt with when I was their age for being a girl, inspired me to explore their stories and learn how machismo culture is experienced from a boy’s point of view.”

– Tatiana Fernández Geara, Director

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