the black bored

During a popular international film festival in India I had the privilege of watching the Dominican film Insular, directed by Hector Valdez. The film remained on my mind even after I left the cinema hall as well as sparking a thought-provoking discussion with the team after the screening. In this exclusive interview, I dive deep into Valdez’s creative process and his decision to use almost no dialogue in the film, exploring the nuances and motivations behind this bold choice.✨ Beyond Insular, we also touch on Valdez’s journey into film-making, his favorite movies, and the current landscape of the Dominican film industry within the global context of world cinema. 🌏 Malpaso (2019), Insular (2022) and Cazatesoros (2024) are some of his latest films. Watch the never-before-seen free-wheeling interview with the rising star of Dominican film industry Hector Valdez. 🇩🇴

Complete Interview Transcript

I would like to know about how you got into cinema and how you fell in love with cinema? Like what’s your connection? A little bit about that. 

I guess it’s pretty much like every other kid that grew up in the 90s. I grew up watching Jurassic Park, Star Wars, all these films that took me to other worlds and jumped started my imagination. I used to draw a lot as a kid. I remember that I – even with my own toys, liked creating my own stories. So I was, by the age of seven, already trying to do things or attempts at cinema, unbeknownst to me. I remember my dad, he had a video camera, a camcorder. And I remember when I was seven, I took it and I took my dinosaur toys and I made some sort of a short film with it. And that was like my first entry level approach to it. Once I got into high school, I started realizing that there’s other countries making movies, not just the United States and Hollywood. So I started getting first into other Latin American films. I remember that time, it was the time when Y Tu Mama Tambien from Mexico had come out on DVD. And I remember I rented it. I also rented Amores Perros,City of God from Brazil, those were like the first other sources of cinema that I got and were not from Hollywood but were closer to the things that I saw in my end growing up in the Dominican Republic and that to me opened up a brand new gate of things. In my mind I was like, okay, so maybe it is a possibility to create stories that come from a Dominican or Caribbean perspective. And so I started making my own short films with my friends when I was 14, 15 years old. And I’ve always liked taking elements from my own culture, but also taking elements from what I liked from those Hollywood films that I still enjoy to this day. I watch pretty much everything. So it’s a full on love affair with cinema. That’s my relationship with it. I like discovering new hidden gems from all over the world. But I also love the films that are showing at the mainstream cinemas, if they’re good or the big films that come for award seasons if there’s an emotional connection to it. But I mean, what I can say is that it’s been a love affair since I was very little. And I feel very fortunate and lucky to be a part of this industry and to have my own stories be a part of the whole breakaway of films that are made all over the world. 

The films that you mentioned, the Mexican films and other Latin American films, remind me of my childhood. I recall watching Hollywood films as I grew up, but then there was this TV channel that launched and started showing world cinema. It was during that time that I got exposed to non-English movies. Since then, I’ve always wondered: how do you watch these movies? Where do you find them? These films are quite well-known, and they often serve as an introduction to non-English films for many people. So, I’m curious, did you always know you wanted to make films? Were you interested from a young age?

In India, at least when I was growing up, pursuing a career in film or entertainment was often discouraged. It seemed like in Hollywood, there were plenty of options available for people, and they could afford to pursue careers in these fields more easily. How was it in your country? Did you ever tell your family that you wanted to be a filmmaker?

Oh yeah, definitely. At first they saw it as a hobby. They’re like, oh yeah, that’s a phase. He’s gonna get over it. I’m 34, I’m still not over it. I don’t think I’ll be over it. But something really interesting has happened in my country and I’m sure it’s happened in yours as well. 

The same sort of ambience when it came to the perception or acceptance of taking on a film career, coming from a country like mine. For example, in my case, my parents, they’re both economists. So they’re both very numbers oriented. They’re very much into math and sciences, social sciences. So it was not at first to them, it was like, well, let’s see. I mean, it’s a creative outlet. He’s doing something that’s, I don’t know, entrepreneurial. Because what I did was I made short films with my friends. I used my abilities with a camera or editing in school for a presentation for projects and I even helped out in different communities with doing videos as a teenager. But saying that you wanted to be a filmmaker and -this is early 2000s, 20 years ago or 24 years ago, it was just like saying you wanted to be an astronaut. It was like, yeah, like you say you want to be a filmmaker, but how are you going to do it?  How are you going to make a career out of it? Because it was not perceived as a viable career path. I remember growing up, because our industry is much, much, much newer than yours by a lot. I remember when I was growing up, there had been there were only, there had only been three or four Dominican films made at the time. I remember the first one was made a couple of years before I was born in the mid eighties. It was called Pasaje de Ida. It’s an amazing film by the way. 

It means ‘one way ticket ‘. it was actually the Dominican Republic’s first submission to the academy. And it was also the first serious feature-length film made in the country. And it’s based on a true story about a group of people that snuck into one of these freighter ships to migrate to the US, but they perished in the process. So it was about what went on with, it’s because they’re not castaways, the illegal migrants.

What they were going through while they were hiding in the ship and the things were going down. And that was actually the first film made in the Dominican Republic that was shown theatrically, that was 90 minutes long. That was like the first glimmer of what Dominican cinema could be. Then in the mid-90s, when they made a film called Nueva York. It’s like New York, but spelled the way that we Dominicans pronounce it. We pronounce the R’s with the L’s. So it’s like, it’s called Nueva York. And that was a big smashing box office hit in the country. And it’s also a film, curiously, about migration. It’s about the, there’s a big population of Dominicans that migrated from the 60s and onwards to New York. So our biggest diaspora is in New York city. So it was a film about the culture clash of going to the US for the first time and being from a country like mine. And they did a sequel to that. And that same director did another film in 2002. Something like that. Other than that, it was very rare to see a Dominican film in the theaters growing up. Those were like the big ones. The two big ones. Even in your country, it was rare to see. Yeah, at the time. Now it’s very common. That’s what’s changed. Because we have, so in the early 2000s, there was also a project that was shown to Congress and it took 10 years to get approved and it was our tax incentive for film production. A lot of big businesses lobbied for it, even politicians that wanted to foster the film industry in the Dominican Republic and that changed everything.

I remember I went to university in Canada. I was living in Montreal at the time. And I remember in my summers, I would come to the Dominican Republic to work as an intern in production companies, but doing work in commercials, maybe some short-form documentaries for television. But no one had made, I mean, there had been movies made, but they were all extremely low budget, super indie movies. Most of them at the time did not meet the criteria that we find and are accustomed to find as moviegoers from any part of the world. Because we, without the tax incentive, unless the film was, highly commercial comedy for a broad audience, people would use it to make films, those who dared to make a film would do it with a micro budget. I even know a story of a director that used his mortgage to finance a film. That was the way it was done back then. But…That completely changed when we suddenly had a tax incentive and there was an incentive for companies to invest what they would instead pay in taxes, 25% of that in movie productions. And all of a sudden there’s, for example, the main universities in the country now have a film career. Now, most of the big companies in the country and even medium to smaller ones have invested or partaken in some ways in films. we have the Dominican Republic’s Film Commission has also made quite a few strides in terms of, in the Department of Education, in terms of adding in programs for in integrating the new graduates or the students to actual productions in the country. We also have a lot of foreign, even Hollywood films that come shoot in the Dominican Republic. And this is all happening. 

Sorry, I mean, this is something that Palamo did mention when we spoke about Dominican Republic becoming this attractive destination for Hollywood movies. 

Yeah, completely.

Especially during the pandemic, a lot of big Hollywood productions came in 2020, 2021, given that we had, I don’t know if it was good COVID management or a better infrastructure than other places, but we had all the resources to make a film. So a lot of Hollywood productions came.And the beautiful thing about it is that it’s all happening simultaneously. Because we see a direct benefit from that in the sense that technically, for example, the people that have worked on my films or friend’s films, they’ve also worked on these Hollywood films. So they come with a brand new set of skills whenever they work on one of these movies and they apply it to ours. And it’s quite a joy to watch. And now, for example, growing up, we had probably maybe one big Dominican film a year and it used to be a comedy. Now we have film releases every single month and we make more than, for a country our size, we make more than 30 films per year. And to us, that’s a lot. That’s quite a lot. And we, so we came from not seeing that many films, Dominican films while growing up now to fighting for a spot in the cinemas to have a film. And now we also have films that are screening at the biggest festivals in the world, including Goa, including Sundance, Venice. We have films all over the world and that That happened in the span of 14 years. Right. From 2010 to 2024. 

Yeah. And thanks to these festivals that I also got introduced to the cinema of your country. Otherwise I would not have, it would not have been easily available. 

Yeah. No, definitely. And even to us Dominicans, it was, it used to be hard to come by a Dominican film, even because even then,Even if the film was big, after it was pulled from the theaters, there was no streaming. There was no maybe a DVD sale of like the most commercial ones but it was not viable as a business to release these films at the time. Cause there was no streaming, there were no films that weren’t getting into festivals. Then now they are. And now there’s a lot of new voices which is also very exciting. because now there’s a formal industry. So now it’s not, it brings me a lot of joy because now I see people or kids that were my age when I wanted to be a filmmaker, having a lot more support because people see it as a more viable option. They’re like, yeah, I mean, they can go to a university here. They can do internships.this and that company are investing a lot in movies. So there’s a lot of productions and there’s Hollywood productions coming. So there’s like, there’s a, it’s a big paradigm shift from what I saw growing up. And I can only imagine how big of a difference it was from like even the pioneers that I mentioned that were the only ones, the three only people making films when I was a child.I remember it must have been like saying you wanted to climb Mount Everest if you wanted to make films in the 70s, the 80s or the 60s. 

You mentioned that you got inspired by Hollywood films. So did you ever think about like, for example, when I was when I used to watch Hollywood films, I used to not see you know, people from my country or you know, like even my skin color, like I used to see people from my country and they were, you know, like these immigrants, like taxi drivers, some shopkeepers. Did that occur to you that, you know, yeah, like people from our country, you know? Yeah, that’s their position in these films. Did you ever think of that? 

Sorry, I have a very personal anecdote. It’s actually quite, now that you mention it, it has a lot to do with what you’re saying. So when I was, let’s say, seven, eight years old, I also loved superheroes. And I remember,that unconsciously, whenever a costume party wanted, was about to happen, or a situation where one would dress up as a superhero, like a costume party, a birthday party, I remember quite clearly and not knowing why, being resistant to dressing up as Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, because I felt that I did not look like them. But now we have, I think he’s Dominican Puerto Rican. We have a Dominican Puerto Rican Spider-Man, which is Miles Morales from the, into the Spider-Verse series. He comes from a Dominican family. And that to me is amazing that these things are happening now that didn’t happen then. I remember also that, yeah, I remember in these films, we would either be represented as criminals or maybe had a very, very small role or not be in movies at all. I remember there’s actually a very interesting story about, I mean, it’s like, we hadn’t had, let’s say a superstar from Dominican origins up until Avatar, Zoe Saldana, she saw from Dominican descent. You know what I mean? Like it was not, we did not have that before. And even if you went through, if you looked at other Latin American countries,most of the Latin American stars did not make the jump to Hollywood at the time. Be it the language barriers, be it also the lack of roles. I remember there’s a big advocate in Hollywood for Latin American representation, which is John Leguizamo and also Edward James Olmos.they were pioneers. Edward James almost wasn’t in Blade Runner. He was in Miami Vice. He was in a lot of these big productions. And he’s one of the, I believe he’s one of the founders of the LA Latin American Film Festival, which is also a big stage for Latin American films to get shown in the US. But definitely, I think times are changing. I think also people, since people have become more exposed given, I mean, for example, if you look at the shows that are trending on Netflix, for example, chances are that there’s a Korean TV show, that there’s a Spanish TV show, like for example, I’m thinking Money Heist or Squid Games, because those were some of the two biggest hits on the platform.But also if you look at the films that have won the Oscars in the last 10 years, you have Parasite winning best foreign picture. So the thing is that the audiences have become more aware of the stories from all over the world because there’s more access. And I think that in and of itself is bringing in more representation in the sense that there’s also a lot of investment by companies like Netflix or production companies to say, okay, so rather than go against this wave, let’s set up shop, for example, Netflix. They have offices in Spain. They have offices in Mexico. They have offices in Brazil.I believe they have offices in Korea. I don’t know if they do in India, but they probably do. I’ve seen Netflix original movies and original shows from India. So the environment is quite different because also I think that the weight of the Hollywood star has diminished a lot. now people are focused on the quality of the content or the quality of the storytelling. Doesn’t matter anymore if you have a big name actor. I remember reading an article saying that the movie star in a short time will be a thing of the past. And some of the last movie stars in the world right now are probably Tom Cruise, DiCaprio, Like people that are box office draws by themselves. That’s something that is not a trend anymore. Now people want to see– 

Fame is dying. Basically fame, that kind of fame is on a decline. 

And the power of story is rising. 

Yes, true, true. So a couple of small questions. Okay, but first I want to touch upon this theme of migration, which you spoke about. So this I didn’t know, but when I watched Insular and while I was talking to Palamo also, she told me about this, that this migration of people from Haiti to Dominican Republic, it’s a thing. And they are, like all of this thing is an issue or it’s a thing. So now that you mentioned the first, the earliest film that you mentioned, it was also about people migrating. So when you were making Insular, did you, like, what do you say? So it came to you because it’s a national thing, a national theme that resonates with people of Caribbean nations or, you know, like how some things come naturally, like how do I say? So for example, in India, we got independence in 1947. And that was also the year when we saw partition. Pakistan was carved out of India. And for a really long time, a lot of literature, cinema, TV shows, a lot of them, were about partition. That was a theme that they were exploring separation, like some people whose families were separated because of partition and people have been waiting. Even now, there are a lot of people who wait for years, like 50, 60 years. They have met, siblings have met. So that was a theme immediately after independence. So is it something like this, this migration, or is it something that you thought that you wanted to tackle? I don’t know if I’m making sense. Is it like a national? 

Yeah, completely. And I love that question because it’s something that I always go back to. I think the answer to your question is both, and I’ll explain why. From a, let’s say national perspective, we, the Caribbean or Caribbean islands,they were, there were no original, let’s say settlers, even the first settlers, the Aboriginal populations that came to this island or to the neighboring islands, they came from South America, from the Orinoco River. They navigated to the Caribbean. And then comes the European colonization, then.comes the Haitian Revolution. After the Haitian Revolution, they become the first independent country in the region, even before the United States. Also the slave trade, everyone, all of the Afro population from America came from a very…the tragic and partitioned form of migration where they separated families, entire families and took one to one country, one to another and they never saw each other again. But I think the topic of migration in modern times became a thing right after the slaying of our dictator. We had a dictatorship from 1930 to 1961. During the dictatorship, only very few selected people could freely travel. Let’s say to the United States, to other countries in South America. It was a very privileged thing to afford traveling and to be granted access to traveling, to a passport or getting visas. So very few people other than diplomats or even ministers or other than that, no one really traveled up until the 60s in the Dominican Republic. It was not a thing that was perceived as possible. And prior to the beginning of the dictatorship, we had a US occupation from 1916 to 1924, And the 60s and 70s were very tumultuous politically. So once the dictator was assassinated, Trujillo, the floodgates to the United States opened and a lot of people migrated to New York, to Spain, to Florida. Well, Florida came after the Cubans, but that was also the time. The Cuban population in Miami came to be right after the Cuban Revolution, people fleeing because they did not live in the Cuban Revolution. So yeah, I think, oh, and if you think, if you take into consideration that Puerto Rico, came from being a Spanish colony and ended up being a US state. We do have a, I don’t know, at least with the US, we do have a thing with migrating to the US because it is perceived culturally as a means of finding progress or finding a better life or success, even to this day. And even if it’s not true, a lot of people, they tend to migrate to the US to send, even also economically, one of our greatest sources of income is the people from the diasporas working in New York, Madrid, where the biggest Dominican populations abroad are sending in money to their families. That’s still one of the biggest sources of income in our country. So if you take that into consideration, Migration is in our DNA from the very beginning. And personally, that is always a topic that has fascinated me. Even from my first few projects to my first feature-length film, I realized as I started maturing as an artist, I realized that that was always a topic that was present in my work. one way or another. I remember my first documentary was about how Dominican and Caribbean art, fine arts came to be. How we, it’s basically a story of how the people that were fleeing World War II and the Spanish Civil War that settled in the Dominican Republic created the National Fine Arts Academy. And bred the first formal generation of Dominican artists. And we have that because of migration. 

Ah, that’s, I think, very beautiful because- 

Yeah, and that was to me what inspired the documentary because it is called República del Color, Republic of Color, because also migrating to the Caribbean affected tremendously, but in a positive way, the art of all of these-artists that were fleeing Europe at the time. Their work gained another color palette, the subject matter changed, even in terms of representation. This is something that quite connects with what we’ve been talking about. The Dominican artists that existed before the European migration to the country in the 30s, they were all very…they learned more, they wanted to paint like Europeans. That’s the first thing. They always chose European looking subjects. They always wanted to paint in a classic, even or some even impressionistic style, but always trying to look European. And it took a whole generation of Europeans to come here, fleeing their countries to make us appreciate what we already had. Because they started what grabbed their attention when they came here was like, no, I have never seen this ethnicity. I have never seen this landscape. I have never seen a sea quite as blue as this one. So you mix that and you mix in the academic formation that these, most of them were teachers had. And all of a sudden we have a new generation that is fully prepared to represent us in the arts. And then In visual arts, to me, that is something that I’m quite proud of. We have a very vibrant art scene when it comes to painting, sculptures, performance, and that is also at the same time very Dominican and very Caribbean. And just as our films are starting to go into the main festivals in the world, we have Dominican artists showing up at the different art basils around the world, getting represented by Christies or big art houses. And I think that goes back to saying that it’s the power of being true to your roots. And going back to the theme of migration, I think I’m focusing now more a little bit on Insular.

I wanted to create a story that tackled the subject of what I was saying before that migrating is perceived as success, as a form of success. In a way, if you look at the main character’s arc in the story, he goes from wanting to leave at all costs to wanting to stay to realizing that this is the place where I’m at. And that was fully intentional in the sense that even, to me, the first scene that came to my mind when thinking of the story is actually one of the last scenes in the film when he’s burning the money in front of the fireplace, because the idea for the film came from two things. One, a short story that was written by one of my earlier mentors. He’s a Dominican writer and he wrote a short story called La Isla, which is about a university professor that gets into one of these migrant trips looking for a frost.