Dominican Republic / All works
Cinema
One Way Ticket
Un pasaje de ida
Agliberto Meléndez · 1988
Synopsis
In Santo Domingo, in the early eighties, workers from poor neighbourhoods want to reach the United States to escape poverty. An organiser of clandestine voyages, María, who shares the money with an official, has them board a cargo ship at night with the complicity of the captain and crew. Shortly before the ship sails, the smugglers lock them in the ballast tank to hide them from the port inspectors. Flashbacks show what drove some of them to leave.
Context
The story is inspired by the death of twenty-two Dominican stowaways, shut on 5 September 1980 in a tank of the Regina Express, a Panamanian cargo ship, in the port of Santo Domingo. Félix Manuel Lora sees in it the first Dominican film to treat migration through fiction, and an indictment of the officials and soldiers involved in illegal voyages. Peyi Guzmán operated the camera, Pericles Mejía edited, Rafael Solano wrote the music. Nearly a hundred thousand spectators saw it in cinemas, according to Acento, and the country submitted it for the Oscar for best foreign-language film, without it being retained among the nominees.
Who it is for
Ninety minutes, in Spanish. It helps to know what the idea of leaving clandestinely for the United States meant, for a Dominican of those years.
Prizes and reception
Fourteen prizes, including the audience award at Huelva, distinctions at Cartagena and Havana, and the Gran Casandra of 1989.
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