Documentary to unveil 'mythic and mysterious' island of Mona

To help mark Hispanic and Latino Heritage Month, SUNY Oswego will present the award-winning documentary "Mona: Tesoro del Caribe," a film aimed at raising awareness of a unique "Caribbean treasure," followed by a Q&A with its director, Sept. 7 and 8 in Tyler Hall's Waterman Theatre.

Show times for the 80-minute film will take place at 12:45 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 7, and 6:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 8. A question-and-answer session with producer and director Sonia Fritz will follow each showing.

"Mona is a beautiful, distant, mythic and mysterious island, full of caves and legends," according to a note with its English subtitled trailer on Vimeo. "It was a ceremonial center for Tainos, original inhabitants who practiced their rituals in these amazing and diverse caves. On their walls they left pictograms made with their fingers: faces, bodies with frog feet or bat wings. With the Spanish arrival and later with the arrival of different pirate ships, Mona became a food and water supplier provided by Taino agriculture."

The island's rich biodiversity includes some threatened species. Its 117 species of birds made Mona -- now a nature reserve of Puerto Rico -- a target for guano harvesting for commercial fertilizers in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Awards for the 2017 documentary have come from Festival de Cine Europeo and Rincon International Film Festival of Puerto Rico. Cinematography is by Carlos Zayas, an Emmy award winner in 2016 for the documentary "15 Lighthouses of Puerto Rico."

Tickets for "Mona: Tesoro del Caribe" are $10 ($7 for SUNY Oswego faculty and staff and free for SUNY Oswego students with current ID) and are available at all SUNY Oswego box offices, online at tickets.oswego.edu and by calling 315-312-2141.

Drivers without a current SUNY Oswego parking sticker need to visit oswego.edu/parking for information on obtaining a day-use permit. Visitors with disabilities or needing assistance should call 315-312-5420 in advance of these events.