Cecilia Aldarondo
Cecilia Aldarondo is an award-winning director, producer and writer from the Puerto Rican diaspora who works at the intersection of poetics and politics. She is known for her features MEMORIES OF A PENITENT HEART (2016), LANDFALL (2020), YOU WERE MY FIRST BOYFRIEND (2023), and DEAR MS: A REVOLUTION IN PRINT (2025). Her films have premiered at Tribeca and SXSW and broadcast on the award-winning PBS Series POV as well as HBO. Aldarondo has a PhD in Cultural Studies from the University of Minnesota, an MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths College, an MA in Gender Studies from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and a BA in English from the University of Florida, and she teaches at Williams College. She is a member of the documentary branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. (02/25)
Available Title(s):
Landfall
A film by Cecilia Aldarondo, 2020, 93 min,
Through shard-like glimpses of everyday life in post-Hurricane María Puerto Rico, LANDFALL (dir. Cecilia Aldarondo) traces collective trauma and resistance in the wake of the devastating storm and exposes the island’s fraught colonial relationship with the United States. The world measured the historic hurricane in wind speeds and flood levels. But when the grid collapsed…
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Memories of a Penitent Heart
A film by Cecilia Aldarondo, 2025, 72 min,
Blending newly discovered home movies, letters, and archival footage with intimate contemporary interviews, MEMORIES OF A PENITENT HEART follows filmmaker Cecilia Aldarondo as she confronts a long-buried family secret surrounding her uncle Miguel’s death at the height of the AIDS crisis, when the disease was widely condemned as sin. A decade later, determined to understand…
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