A documentary by Nayibe Tavares-Abel.
Dominican filmmaker Nayibe Tavares-Abel’s debut documentary Colossal had its UK premiere at this year’s Sheffield DocFest, bringing a deeply personal and political story to the screen. The film examines her family’s connection to the controversial 1990 elections in the Dominican Republic, unpicking themes of electoral fraud, civic responsibility and generational legacy.
Tavares-Abel spent eight years gathering material – interviews, home footage, and extensive archive – in an effort to piece together the public and private sides of a history that continues to cast a long shadow. At its heart is her grandfather, Froilán Tavares, who was head of the electoral board that oversaw the 1990 vote which handed power to Joaquín Balaguer amid widespread allegations of fraud. Her uncle, Amín Abel, was a radical activist who was murdered for his political work. This is no abstract historical narrative – it’s her family’s story, intertwined with the country’s own.
The title Colossal refers to the “colossal fraud” of the 1990 election, a phrase used by opposition leader Juan Bosch, but also to the sheer scale of political weight that Tavares-Abel has inherited. The past is unavoidable, overwhelming, omnipresent – and she doesn’t try to separate her personal connection from the bigger picture. Much of the film is framed around the image of her assembling a family tree on a wall. It’s a useful device, helping orient the viewer, although it does come with its own challenges.
For one, the narrative isn’t always easy to follow. Several of the family members share the same name, and without much on-screen clarification, it can become a bit of a tangle – especially for viewers unfamiliar with the political context. Despite the film’s relatively short run time, the pacing can feel slow. Some of this is down to artistic choices – repeated shots of the director swimming, for example, only really make sense at the very end, and feel like they’re there to stretch out the film. More significantly, a number of the film’s participants seem hesitant to speak openly, and that sense of discomfort seeps into the storytelling. The result is a film that’s often emotionally guarded, when it might have benefited from being more direct.
That said, Colossal is on much firmer ground when it leans on its archival material. The footage from the period is evocative, often electric, and offers a powerful insight into a political moment many outside the region know little about. For viewers whose knowledge of the Dominican Republic starts and ends with all-inclusive resorts, the film offers a much-needed reminder of the country’s recent struggles with democracy, corruption and US-backed regimes.
As a primer on Dominican political history, it’s compelling. We learn about Froilán’s ultimately thwarted attempts to run a fair election, and about the activist legacy of Amín Abel. We see the past bleeding into the present, as modern observers use mobile phone footage to safeguard voting integrity in real time. And it’s all delivered with a strong visual sensibility and a well-judged sound design that adds tension and texture to the archive.
But there’s a sense that Colossal doesn’t quite commit to one approach. Is it a personal reckoning, or a national investigation? In trying to be both, it sometimes ends up in a kind of narrative no man’s land – engaging, but unresolved. There’s clear artistic intent here but also caution. You can feel the weight of family history bearing down on the filmmaker, and while that lends it poignancy, it also seems to hold the film back from sharper editorial decisions.
Still, this is a debut full of promise. Tavares-Abel has a story worth telling, and even if Colossal doesn’t always find the cleanest way to tell it, there’s real substance and purpose behind her work. With a predominantly female creative team, it also reflects the growing role of women in shaping documentary practice in Latin America – and in telling the stories that have too long gone unspoken.
