About the Film
This short documentary follows two esteemed Cuban-American public servants as they recount the traumatic events leading up to their parents’ decision to send them solo on an airplane to the US as unaccompanied child refugees.
In the film, they re-witness the slow decay of their idyllic life in Cuba and the rise of Fidel Castro’s dictatorship in the early 60s, which causes them to flee through a little-known program called Operation Pedro Pan, whereby over 14,000 Cuban children immigrated to the US through secret airlifts coordinated by the Catholic Church, the US State Department and Cuban citizens.
Our contributors’ parallel stories intertwine throughout the film as we see them contemplate the impact this event had on their lives and what we all have to learn from it today.
The director’s mother was also a Pedro Pan child and is the inspiration for the film.
The Seed
This is a project that wouldn’t release its hold on Janelle until she embarked on this storytelling journey. As Director and Producer, she had the vision for the film because her mother, Irene Caridad Bibilonia Bosek, was an Operation Pedro Pan child. Janelle grew up trying to pull stories like stubborn teeth out of her mom so she could understand her Cuban heritage better.
Due to the difficulty in recounting the events that, as a 9-year-old, Irene experienced during the almost 4 years she was separated from her family, when asked, she chose not to be on camera for the film. However, she is 100% the inspiration for it. Irene’s story parallels those that appear in the documentary in many ways.
Janelle had a clear vision that she wanted to let the story be told in the words of the Pedro Paners as they remember it and thus there is no narration.
We hope the film sparks more conversations about this little-known event in US history and brings us all closer to healing our sacred wounds, as it has done for Janelle, Irene, Ric and Guillermo.
Storytelling is magic.
