Sugar

I got a call the other day from Michelle Rodriguez’s best friend/business partner, Giancarlo Chersich, who is married to Dominican babe Celines Toribio. He was telling me about a new crime thriller Celines executive produced called La Soga, which was filmed in the DR and will make its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival later this month. It will be the first Dominican movie to bow at the festival, so congrats to Celines and crew! I'll be writing about that a little later down the line.

But our conversation reminded me of another indie flick I loved, which premiered at Sundance in January and had a limited theatrical run shortly after. It’s called Sugar, and though it was filmed by gringos Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden (of Half Nelson fame), it’s all about the life of young Dominican baseball players who are brought over to the United States and dream of making it to the big leagues. Only their lives are far from glamorous, as evidenced by the movie’s main character, Miguel “Azucar” Santos, played to perfection by newcomer Algenis Perez Soto. Our online editor Mariela wrote a review when it premiered and we basically agree that this equal parts sports flick, coming-of-age tale and immigrant drama is a must-see. Check it out on DVD from Sony Pictures Classics starting today, if you haven’t seen it already. Hopefully in the next few years, there will be more and more of these kinds of films coming out of the DR.