Come Together at the Seams: Music Box Films Lands Monica Sorelle’s Mountains

Beyond Harmony Korine, the Florida film community has produced some solid American indie cinema. Last year, we witnessed this through a family portrait that captured the struggles of staying together as gentrification threatened to further bulldoze their community. Winner of the Someone to Watch award at the Independent Spirit Awards, Monica Sorelle‘s feature debut has been picked up by the Music Box Films for what will be a hometown theatrical premiere on August 16 followed by New York on August 23. Set in Miami, Mountains is an extremely rare example of a feature film that world premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and then received a Toronto Intl. Film Festival invite that same year (we were on-hand).

Based in the immigrant enclave of Little Haiti in Miami, Xavier (Atibon Nazaire) is a middle-aged, working-class Haitian demolition worker who hopes to one day buy his beloved seamstress wife, Esperance (Sheila Anozier), a new and spacious suburban home. Meanwhile, their doted-on college-dropout son Junior (Chris Renois) struggles against his father’s rigid expectations by day while quietly pursuing a career as a stand-up comic by night.