NEW DAY FILMS BY
Andrea Leland:

The Garifuna Journey

The Long Road Home

Jamesie, King of Scratch

Producer's Web Site:
www.andrealeland.com

Andrea E. Leland has been documenting cultures and working collaboratively with communities in the Caribbean since 1986. She has taken on the role of producer, director, writer, researcher and camera operator during the process. With a masters degree from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, she began her artistic career by painting and traveling throughout the Caribbean seeking cultural expressions and exploring layers of influence derived from African, Amerindian and European sources.

Following a trip to Haiti in 1986, Leland found filmmaking to be a more effective way to both celebrate a community visually and address the issues of culture in the social and political context. In addition, though the collaboration process, the groups being documented could be given a forum to voice their untold stories, personal challenges and compelling triumphs.

Her first documentary, Voodoo and the Church in Haiti, celebrates Voodoo as a traditional form of African spirituality and places it within the context of everyday life in Haiti. She is currently self distributing this documentary.


Working collaboratively with Maya refugees living in Chicago and Chiapas, she completed The Long Road Home currently in the New Day collection.

This documentary tells the story of the atrocities committed against the Mayan's in the Guatemalan government's "Scorch and Burn" policy of the early 1980's, resulting in mass exodus of Mayans to refugee camps in Chiapas, Mexico. This documentary has been updated in 2001.

In 1995, Leland partnered with Kathy Berger and began a collaboration with the Garifuna people of Belize and the United States in producing the documentary The Garifuna Journey, also in the New Day collection.

Descendants of African and Amerindian ancestors who successfully resisted slavery, the Garifuna emerged with a separate and distinct culture still in existence today. As a first voice project, The Garifuna Journey has been awarded "special project" status from Cultural Survival.

Andrea Leland lives and works both in Chicago and the U.S.Virgin Islands. She recently completed a feature length documentary about Scratch Band (Quelbe)music in the Virgin Islands entitled JAMESIE, KING OF SCRATCH.

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