Perfume de Gardenias
TFI Suppport
TFI Network 2018
Logline
Isabel is a grieving widow who gains a new sense of creativity and purpose by helping her friend Toña plan their neighbor’s funerals. Once she learns that Toña assists these sick neighbors in their deaths, Isabel begins to come to terms with her own grief and loss.
Gisela Rosario
Writer, Director
Gisela Rosario Ramos studied Black and Puerto Rican Studies, Film and Media Studies, and, Fine Arts at Hunter College, NYC. Her first editing credit was as co-editor for ANOTHER BROTHER, a documentary by Tami Gold about Clarence Fitch, a Vietnam War veteran balancing his drug addiction and his commitment to the anti-war movement. This documentary received a CINE Golden Eagle Award, a Gold Hugo award at the Chicago International Film Festival, a World Gold Medal at The New York International Film Festival and was broadcast nationally on PBS as opening film for the “P.O.V.” series. Upon returning to Puerto Rico in 2002, she worked for various independent TV productions such as BORICUAS: ISLA, LOZA Y BARRIO; a weekly show that provided videocams to youth between the ages of 15 to 20 to film their lives for a week. In BORICUAS, her initial role as editor evolved into one of director. She also worked for LINEAS DE FUGA, a weekly youth-oriented magazine style show about arts and culture that was also nominated for the Excellence in PR Television Award. She later worked for GEOAMBIENTE, a weekly environmental show, winner of various EMMY (Suncoast Edition) awards and the Excellence in PR Television Award. In GEOAMBIENTE, she started as editor and later became director. Furthermore, she won a best editing award for the fiction film EL CLOWN at the Festival de Cine Latinoamericano in Providence, NY. Her social commitment always a driving force of her work, she edited DI PEREJIL, an hour-long documentary about Dominico-Haitian women struggling against discrimination along the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which was picked up for distribution by the National Film Network.
Arleen Cruz
Producer
Arleen Cruz-Alicea is a director and producer of documentary and audiovisual educational projects. She has worked in the audiovisual field as a producer, director and copywriter of advertising projects. She has been a local producer of television projects and advertising agencies for international clients. She is AdocPR (Puerto Rico Documentary Association) current president, on organization dedicated to disseminate the documentary genre by creating new audiences, offering workshops and training tools for our members, lobbying for public policy in favor of national film production (narrative and non narrative), and creating alliances of collaboration, exhibition and dialogue with international forums. Her film GIVING BIRTH - A History of 20 women (2006 ), was presented on Mother's Day on national TV. In 2011, she created MANUEL for an organization that supports families of children with disabilities. MANUEL is a short documentary film about the inclusion of a child with Down syndrome to the regular classroom . Keeping with the theme of inclusion, she also created TODOS JUNTOS YA documenting the teamwork between parents, teachers and staff of a school in the town of Culebra Island so that students with special needs are integrated into the classroom with their grade level peers.
Produced for the Puerto Rican Endowment for the Humanities the program DESDE EL BAÚL, which starts with archived documentary files and contextualized them to the present. Her short documentary PARIR EN PAZ (TO GIVE BIRTH IN PEACE) (2013), works on the issue of obstetric violence from the perspective of nurses working in labor and delivery wards in various hospitals in Puerto Rico. As a producer she is responsible for the short documentary EL HIJO DE RUBI which is part of the Puerto Rico Film Commission's initiative MICROS. CUENTAS PENDIENTES, her first long format documentary as a director premiered in 2016. She is currently developing her second documentary feature, CUERPO/ALMA, which participated in Docs Barcelona Lab last may. She premiered last month HISTÉRICAS a short film part of LA MIRADA COMPARTIDAS a collective documentary, and ANATOMÍA DE LAS CANAS, a transmedia documentary that works with the concept of aging in women from 50 to 80. She is the producer of the narrative feature PERFUME DE GARDENIAS which received development support from the TRIBECA FILM INSTITUTE.