Cecilia Aldarondo is a documentary director and producer from the Puerto Rican diaspora who makes films at the intersection of poetry and politics. Her work has been supported by ITVS, HBO, A&E, the Sundance Institute, Cinereach, Firelight Media, Field of Vision, IFP, the Jerome Foundation, and many others. Her debut documentary “Memories of a Penitent Heart” had its world premiere at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival and was broadcast on “POV” in 2017. Aldarondo is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2017 Women at Sundance Fellow, two-time MacDowell Colony Fellow, and recipient of a 2019 Bogliasco Foundation Residency.

“Landfall” was scheduled to screen at the 2020 Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival. A digital version of the fest has been organized due to the COVID-19 pandemic. More information about the program and how to tune in can be found here. “Landfall” will air in 2021 on the award-winning public television series POV.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

CA: “Landfall” takes stock of the aftermath of Hurricane María, a massive storm that devastated my homeland of Puerto Rico in 2017. While María attracted a great deal of media coverage, the world has paid far less attention to the storm that preceded it: a 72-billion-dollar debt crisis crippling Puerto Rico well before the winds and waters hit. “Landfall” examines the kinship of these two storms — one environmental, the other economic — juxtaposing competing utopian visions of recovery. Featuring intimate encounters with Puerto Ricans as well as the newcomers flooding the island, “Landfall” reflects on a question of contemporary global relevance: when the world falls apart, who do we become?

W&H: What drew you to this story?

CA: “Landfall” is an expression of the impotence, grief, and rage that I have been carrying with me since Hurricane María hit Puerto Rico in 2017. My wheelchair-bound grandmother died six months after the storm, and I now count her as one of the thousands of unnecessary deaths that María caused.

I didn’t grow up in Puerto Rico; like many Puerto Ricans, I am the product of a diaspora that was forced upon us by economic challenges. In making this film, I was driven by a desire to confront a massive abyss in my own understanding of Puerto Rican history and culture as a way of addressing deep colonial wounds.

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?

CA: Typically, communities most affected by disasters are depicted as victims, but “Landfall” turns this pitying gaze on its head in an effort to demonstrate that Puerto Ricans are crisis experts. In other words, I don’t just want people to look at Puerto Rico or feel sorry for what we’ve been through, but rather I would like viewers to see that Puerto Ricans have set an example for the world.

Two years after being abandoned by an incompetent and unjust government, Puerto Ricans banded together through a mass wave of protests and removed an elected governor from office in just 12 days. This is a powerful testament to what can be achieved when a traumatized people come together and demand justice.

Puerto Rico is not merely a U.S. colony at risk of losing its culture and people: it is a cautionary tale for our times.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

CA: It is hard to make a beautiful film out of so much pain — there is always the risk of romanticizing suffering. I wanted to make a film that celebrates the rhythms of this extraordinary place, even as it explores the injustices of Puerto Rico’s crisis. I also had to navigate the pitfalls of my own ignorance. As a diasporic Puerto Rican, the last thing I wanted was to parachute in and impose my limited vision on a situation I did not live day-to-day.

Instead, “Landfall” became a testament to crisis intimacy: the resulting film is a deep collaboration between me, a diasporic Puerto Rican who grew up in the continental U.S., and Lale Namerrow Pastor, an island-raised Puerto Rican who has been living with the crisis in a way I do not.

One of the most important lessons Lale has taught me is the importance of listening to her experiences over and above my own, and I hope that the resulting film offers Puerto Ricans a chance to build solidarity through that listening process.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.

CA: “Landfall” was fortunate to receive early support from Executive Producers Laura Poitras and Charlotte Cook at Field of Vision. I am incredibly proud that the film was funded through a combination of public television funding and grants, and will air next year on “POV.”

A major theme of this film is how crises enable governments to justify gutting public infrastructure: Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis provided the perfect excuse to slash university budgets, threaten pensions, and shutter hundreds of schools. Puerto Rico is being hollowed out, leaving an entire generation of Puerto Ricans with no safety net or sense of a viable future.

Given how COVID-19 has plunged the U.S. into a financial abyss, the rest of this country is at risk of the same. At times like these, it is vital to recognize the importance of publicly funded media to a healthy democracy. We’re in the midst of a calamity of epic proportions, and for-profit solutions just won’t save us.

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

CA: I didn’t go to film school, but I always loved film. My first job out of college was as a programming assistant at the Florida Film Festival, which was where I first discovered documentary. I became a filmmaker in 2008 when my mother handed me a box of 8mm home movies that she’d found in the garage. That discovery catalyzed my first film, “Memories of a Penitent Heart,” which explored the fallout from my uncle Miguel’s death from AIDS.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

CA: Best advice: Don’t go to film school and make your films on your terms.

Worst advice: Stop making films for PBS and do branded content instead.

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?

CA: You are only as strong as your collaborators. Communicate, build trust, and advocate for one another. Female empowerment isn’t empowerment if you’re exploiting others.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

CA: Asking a filmmaker for a favorite film is impossible. I’ll give you three: Tatiana Huezo’s “El Lugar Más Pequeño” because of its fiercely compassionate exhumation of collective memory. Lucrecia Martel’s “La Ciénaga” because I can still hear the cicadas. “Beaches of Agnès” by Agnès Varda because there is nothing so liberating as an old woman being playful onscreen.

W&H: How are you adjusting to life during the COVID-19 pandemic? Are you keeping creative, and if so, how?

CA: I’m not adjusting to this life, and I hope no one else does. Normalization of this crisis is one of the many pitfalls we face, and it’s an incredible privilege to be alive and safe right now.

While I am trying to keep connected to my artistic practice, I am finding much greater purpose in building community and solidarity with other independent filmmakers who are at a crossroads. All the things that weren’t working in our system before are even more obvious. Business as usual just doesn’t apply to most of us — so I’m spending most of my energy dreaming of a new world of collaboration, community, and true filmmaker independence.