Talk Bronx New York

 

Algenis Perez Soto in ‘Sugar’: from the Dominican Republic to the Bronx

 

Local filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden step up to bat with ‘Sugar’

 One of their early films, “Gowanus, Brooklyn,” won the shorts prize at the

 Sundance Film Festival in 2004, and three years later their first feature-length film, “Half Nelson” earned an Oscar nod for star Ryan Gosling. Now, Brooklyn-based writing-directing team Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden have a new project, “Sugar,” about the unlikely journey of an aspiring minor league baseball player, Miguel “Sugar” Santos (newcomer Algenis Perez Soto), from his humble home in the Dominican Republic, to the corn fields of Iowa, to the melting pot that is the Bronx.

Shot over three months with a tight-knit, traveling crew,  “Sugar” features international locations that may seem more exotic than Fleck and Boden’s previous films. But the duo’s familiar themes abound: dramatic, uplifting stories of unsung New York characters. We sat down with the filmmaking couple to test their Spanish skills and learn about a raucous, family-friendly baseball game in the Bronx that inspired the movie.

“Sugar” is such a unique, behind-the-scenes story of one guy trying to make it in American professional baseball. How’d you come up with the idea?
Ryan Fleck: I’m a baseball fan but only recently realized that each baseball team has these academies in the Dominican Republic. We were very aware of the Dominican superstar players in the major leagues, like Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, but we didn’t quite understand how it was happening. We realized there are hundreds of players who go through this process, following the dream of becoming a big-league superstar. But what happens to those guys who don’t quite make it?

You two live in Brooklyn, and “Half Nelson” was shot there. This film, though, was shot all over the place. What was that like?
RF: It was fun. We got to see places—not only the Dominican Republic, but we went to Arizona and small-town Iowa—that we were not familiar with. And the Bronx. I think there are very few New Yorkers who live in Brooklyn who ever get up to the Bronx unless they are going to Yankee Stadium.

You shot the film in sequence?
Anna Boden: Yes, almost in sequence. Thankfully we were able to do that. For the actors [many of them first-time performers], that was so great to be able to experience each place as the character would be experiencing it.

Did you write the script in Spanish?
RF: No.

So then how did the movie get so much dialogue in Spanish?
RF: We wrote it all in English and then we used the tool in Word, the translation tool.

Huh?
RF: Just kidding [laughs]. No, Anna speaks very good Spanish. Mine is much more limited.

One scene that that really stands out is when Sugar joins the team of former professional players that plays baseball in the Bronx’s Crotona Park. How’d you find them?
AB: We had heard about this league that plays up there that’s mostly Dominican guys. We went and were so surprised that everybody had played professionally, not always in the major leagues but somewhere along the way in the minors. We started talking to them, learning about their stories, and that’s what led us to the Dominican Republic. We knew from the very first stages of our research where the story was going to end. It was all leading up to this moment in the ballpark.

Do they get big crowds to watch the games?
RF: On a nice day everyone’s families are out. Guys are drinking beer in the dugout during the games. It’s really competitive but the spirit is really fun.

AB: There’s a lot of music. They put up these big speakers and someone is narrating.

RF: Yeah, there’s an announcer, in Spanish, this kind of drunken announcer.

AB: Unfortunately, we wish we could’ve captured it more. We were shooting at the end of October, so it wasn’t quite as nice out.

RF: It was hard. I don’t think we quite got it. You have to experience it.

AB: The real thing is more emotional.

“Sugar” opens in New York on April 3. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

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Tags: Algenis Perez Soto, baseball, bronx, Bronx News, Bronx People, Crotona, crotona park, David Ortiz, Dominican Republic, Major League, Manny Ramirez, new york, shooting, Sports, Sundance Film Festival, The Bronx, Yankee, Yankee Stadium

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