New York filmmaker Diana Peralta’s vibrant feature film debut, DE LO MIO, will World Premiere as the Closing Night film of BAMcinemaFest which runs June 12 to 23. A bittersweet family drama set in the Dominican Republic, DE LO MIO will screen at BAMcinematek on Saturday, June 22 at 7:30 pm.

Inspired by Peralta’s personal experiences as a Dominican-American whose identity is rooted in two cultures, DE LO MIO tells the story of “thick as thieves” sisters Carolina (Darlene Demorizi) and Rita (Sasha Merci), who reconnect with their brother Dante (Héctor Aníbal) after their father’s death in order to settle his estate in Santiago, Dominican Republic. Dante’s father left him in Santiago at a young age to find temporary work in the US, but never came back. His spirited half-sisters Carolina and Rita (the product of his father’s second family in the US) are ride-or-die New Yorkers who only remember their father’s childhood home in snapshots from their shared summer vacations. As they reunite to clean out the rundown estate, the siblings laugh, brawl and face their demons as they come to terms with letting go of their last connection to their motherland. 

Diana Peralta is a producer, filmmaker, and writer by way of New York City and the Dominican Republic. She currently works as a Producer at Revlon, where she leads a range of projects across content production, brand design, digital design, industrial design, and marketing activation. Her work as a producer on the short documentary LA FERIA CONCRETA was screened as part of the Dominican Republic’s first pavilion installation at the 2014 Venice Biennale of Architecture. Her short films have been featured in several festivals and theatrical productions across the US. Aside from her own work, Peralta has collaborated below-the-line on films like Matthew Porterfield’s PUTTYHILL (Berlin, SXSW ‘10) and I USED TO BE DARKER (Sundance, Berlin ‘13). She graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2011 with a B.A. in Film & Media Studies.