We congratulate our friends at NFocus Pictures for winning the Jury Award for Best Caribbean Film at the Aruba International Film Festival (AIFF) on June 13, their second consecutive international film award.

Voices From Mariel Wins Second International Award

The documentary Voices From Mariel has won its second-straight international film award.

The film, produced by NFocus Pictures, won the Jury Award for Best Caribbean Film at the Aruba International Film Festival (AIFF) on June 13. The film also won the Audience Choice Award for Best Documentary at the Gasparilla International Film Festival this past March.

The film features Florida Southern professor Dr. Jose Garcia as he and the crew at NFocus interview survivors of the 1980 Mariel Boatlift. In the film, Dr. Garcia and the crew at NFocus interview survivors that were willing to talk about the ordeal. The film also travels to Cuba as Dr. Garcia shows where it all happened and documents him as he tries to reconnect with the family he left behind that still live in Cuba.

Garcia was 13 years old when he and his family fled along with as many as 125,000 people from Cuba in boats that were barely seaworthy from the Ports of Mariel for a better life in America.

Garcia is now the Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies and Modern Languages Chair at FSC.

You can see the film's trailer and order a DVD copy HERE.