Zunzuncito

SHORT DOCUMENTARY (2022)

Ten-year-old Mikey moves through a world of possibilities, finding different ways to make trouble, different personas to embody, and different ways to self express through the streets of his Vedado home.

Mikey, de diez años, se mueve a traves de un mundo de posibilidades, haciendo travesuras, encarnando diferentes personajes, y muchas otras maneras de expresarse a traves de las calles del Vedado.

AWARDS

Fusion Film Festival, 2021, winner

DOC NYC, 2021, official selection

Crew

directed by/dirigido por Elle Rinaldi

cinematography by/cinematografía por Elle Rinaldi, Kyra Chen

sound design by/ diseño de sonido por Elle Rinaldi

music by/música por Kyra Chen, Yasel Muñoz Alvarez

color by/color por Sarah White

It began at the end of a run.

I was walking home, exhuasted and sweaty, when a small but booming voice shouted across the street: “Quieres jugar?” Do you want to play? I turned to find a young group of boys lounging by the side of the road. The smallest of them repeated himself, “Quieres jugar?!!” as if I was late to a game I didn’t know I was showing up for. This was Mikey. At ten years old, he was the oldest but smallest of his friends, the leader, by far the most commanding.

After excitedly accepting the offer into Vedado’s most exclusive social group, I would go on to spend a part of every single day for two months with Mikey. We passed time walking, drawing, dancing, and playing soccer, volleyball, baseball, racing, everything. I’d watch his aggressive demeanor and physical recklessness grow and wane, come and go as we passed through different spaces and spent more time together. I came to realize I was watching Mikey perform, the way everyone does as a kid growing up in a world swirling with expectations around them.

Zunzuncito began as a medium of play between me, an older, White, American girl, and Mikey, a young, Black, Cuban boy, as we fell into inseparable friendship. Over time, the film became my eyes and ears as I realized Mikey’s various performances- his loudness, flaunting wounds, showing off aggression- were unfolding into an unspoken vulnerability- a keenness to listen, desire to learn, desire to teach, and newfound confidence much more honest than when we met.

Through it all, Mikey taught me the agelessness of learning as he and I taught each other sports, games, language, crafts, and small ways that make a big difference in how we each see and hear the world around us. Ultimately, Zunzuncito is about Mikey, my relationship to him, and our friendship forged out of play, the most powerful backdrop against which the complexities of boyhood expression can reveal themselves.