Miami, FL
Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood is on borrowed time. A film is documenting it all
MIAMI — For decades a neighborhood in Miami known as Little Haiti has been the center of the Haitian community. But what’s made the area so unique now has the attention of developers.
A filmmaker wanted to document the changes and highlight the struggles of people living there — and it’s all part of a film released this month.
The film Mountains tells the story of a family that’s experiencing the changes firsthand in Little Haiti. It’s shot with a Haitian American cast with dialogue in Haitian Creole and is being released nationwide this month.
Little Haiti is a neighborhood known for the colorful storefronts of convenience stores, restaurants and botanicas lining Miami’s Second Avenue. People sit on chairs outside the stores and their homes as the occasional rooster struts by. Haitians fleeing poverty and political repression began coming here in the 1970s and ’80s. It wasn’t until 2016 though, that Miami officially designated the neighborhood “Little Haiti.”
It’s the setting for the first full-length feature by Haitian American filmmaker Monica Sorelle. At Choublak, a coffee shop and visitor’s center in Little Haiti, Sorelle told NPR in an interview, “We actually shot here. The scene where Esperanza’s on her walk and stops at the vendor. It was here.”
Sorelle spent a lot of time in Little Haiti when she was growing up. Developers have long been eyeing this area. But redevelopment moved into high gear over the last decade after they transformed an adjacent neighborhood, Wynwood, into a wealthier arts and nightlife district.
Sorelle saw it happening in Little Haiti when she returned to Miami after film school in 2014. “I started realizing and noticing the changes in the neighborhood,” she says. “And started seeing a lot of the same developers that were working in Wynwood were buying up properties in Little Haiti.”
Sorelle’s film opens with scenes of crews using heavy machinery to demolish buildings in the neighborhood. It’s the kind of thing she was seeing daily there and in Wynwood where she was working at the time.
One day, Sorelle noticed demolition workers ending their day and one crossing the street as he walked back home. She says, “The question came up, like what if he lives over there and he crosses the street to demolish his own neighborhood and redevelop his own neighborhood?”
That idea grew into the script for Mountains. A Miami nonprofit, Oolite Arts, provided important funding for a microbudget film with a Haitian American cast.
Shooting it in Haitian Creole made it difficult to find financial backers. Robert Colom, who co-wrote the script and produced the film, says, “A big production company that we met with in New York said, ‘We can make this together for $2 million and in English and with stars.’ It just wasn’t the idea that we had for this film. To be able to tell an authentic story about an experience of Little Haiti, I think we had to do it in the way that we did.”
The film’s title, Mountains, is taken from a Haitian proverb, “Behind mountains, there are more mountains.” It’s a nod to the challenges the story’s main character, Xavier, and all immigrants face as they adapt to a new country. Sorelle says, “That looks like, if I work hard, I will be able to provide. And I will be able to climb. And he has worked hard and he has been able to provide. And he has a house, you know. But the minute he wants more, that’s when he starts to realize that it’s not as accessible to him as he thought.” In the film, Xavier becomes frustrated with his inability to move his family into a bigger home.
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An important part of the movie, and Haitian culture, is rara, an impromptu street parade with music that harks back to the revolution that brought Haiti its independence. Sorelle says raras used to happen almost every Friday. “You would be in your home. And then you would just hear the distant sound of a drum or a horn,” she says. “And all of a sudden, there’s like this beautiful, spontaneous street parade that a lot of Haitians would join in on.” Rara parades are less common in Little Haiti now, another sign of the changing neighborhood.
Little Haiti’s days may be numbered, but the Haitian American community has long since established a strong presence in several other neighborhoods and cities in South Florida. Sorelle is philosophical about the changes, saying: “These are just buildings after all. But I think what concerns me is that it’s a disrespect of what the Haitian community has given. And the minute it’s economically viable, there’s no use for these people anymore.”
Sorelle’s film, Mountains, opened in Miami and is playing at independent theaters this month and next in Florida and other areas around the country.
Copyright 2024 NPR
Argentine forward’s brace included the match winner against Colorado Rapids in front of over 75,000 fans in Denver.
Published On 19 Apr 2026
Lionel Messi scored a brace and German Berterame headed another as Inter Miami earned a 3-2 win over the Colorado Rapids in Major League Soccer (MLS) on Saturday in Denver.
Messi scored the go-ahead goal in the 79th minute. He started a run just inside midfield and went unchallenged until the box, where he blasted into the upper left corner for a 3-2 lead.
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Rafael Navarro and Darren Yapi each scored for Colorado (4-4-0, 12 points) in front of 75,824 at Empower Field, the second-largest crowd in MLS history.
Miami (4-1-3, 15 points) took a 1-0 lead in the 18th minute after Colorado goalkeeper Zack Steffen’s pass was intercepted by Yannick Bright. Josh Atencio offered a hard challenge and was shown a yellow card after video review.
Messi took the resulting penalty and rolled his shot straight down the middle as Miami took a 1-0 lead.
Colorado had a solid look at the goal when midfielder Wayne Frederick attempted a one-touch lob. Miami goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair was out of position and well beyond the penalty arc after heading away a loose ball, but Frederick’s attempt sailed over the open net.
In the fifth minute of first-half stoppage time, Miami extended their lead to 2-0, connecting on a series of passes deep in their attacking third. Messi got the run of play started with a tight touch pass to Rodrigo De Paul.
De Paul sent Mateo Silvetti on a run to the boundary line. His inward-spinning cross floated to the front of goal, where Berterame rose above the Colorado defence and tucked a header under the bar.
Navarro’s goal cut Miami’s lead to 2-1. He started a run in midfield and used a step-over move to get an open shot a few steps into the box that tucked inside the left post past a diving St. Clair in the 58th minute.
In the 62nd minute, second-half substitute Yapi settled on a direct pass from Lucas Herrington and sizzled a shot past St. Clair for the equaliser.
Miami closed the win playing a man down as Yannick Bright was sent off with a red card in the 87th minute.
The Cleveland Browns traded for an extended right tackle, former Houston Texan Tytus Howard, at the start of free agency as they began their rebuild of the offensive line that was awful in 2025. But Howard has played every position on the offensive line except for center, so if it’s all about getting your best five on the field, which it should be, there’s a chance Howard doesn’t play at right tackle in 2026.
While doing a mock draft on Peter Schrager’s podcast, former Tennessee Titans general manager Ran Carthon had the Browns drafting Miami (FL) right tackle sixth overall. He talked about the issue with Howard, but said Mauigoa could either take over the tackle spot or be a really good guard.
Carthon said he knows that Mauigoa would be one of their best five, whether it is at guard or tackle. Some will say that a guy who may be best at guard isn’t worth the sixth overall pick, and I have to disagree. You should draft the best football players, and Francis Mauigoa is my highest-rated offensive lineman and seventh overall. It might be at guard, but I have a good feeling that Mauigoa will find a home in the NFL as a high-quality offensive lineman.
Inventory of homes and condos across the coastal Miami mainland and Miami Beach and the barrier island markets fell in the first quarter, marking the first big inventory drops since 2023.
The Corcoran Group’s first quarter reports don’t cover all of Miami-Dade County, but they offer insight into how the coastal markets, which have a higher share of luxury properties, are performing.
In Miami Beach, Sunny Isles Beach, Bal Harbour, Bay Harbor Islands, Surfside, Miami Beach, Fisher Island and Key Biscayne, single-family home inventory dropped 15 percent annually to 398 listings, and condo inventory was down 13 percent to 3,919 listings.
On Miami’s coastal mainland markets, which include Aventura, Miami Shores, Upper East Side, Edgewater, downtown Miami, Brickell, Coral Gables and Coconut Grove, inventory slipped 4 percent to 4,584 condo listings and 555 single-family listings, down 6 percent year-over-year.
Here’s a closer look at the market:
Miami Beach and the barrier islands
Single-family sales rose 13 percent year-over-year to 85 closings, the first time they have increased since the second quarter of 2024. Condo closings rose 15 percent to 693 closings, the first increase since the last quarter of 2024.
Pricing dropped, with the median price of single-family homes down 4 percent to $3.5 million and the median condo price down 9 percent to $640,000. The average price per square foot was nearly flat at $1,119.
Still, buyers set records with their purchases. Billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg paid $170 million for the waterfront mansion at 7 Indian Creek Island Road, and Starbucks billionaire Howard Schultz paid $44 million, or $7,949 per square foot, for a penthouse at the Four Seasons Residences at The Surf Club.
Coastal mainland
Sales of single-family homes on the coastal mainland rose 16 percent to 220 closings. While markets like Coral Gables experienced declines in condo and single-family home sales, Coconut Grove home sales surged — up over 100 percent for single-family homes to 47 closings and up 55 percent to 87 condo closings. Condo sales rose 13 percent to 759 closings.
The median price of single-family homes across the coastal mainland rose 11 percent to just over $2 million. The median price of condos increased slightly, up 1 percent, to $602,000.
The priciest deals in the first quarter were the $32 million trade of 12 Tahiti Beach Island Road in Coral Gables, and the $19.8 million sale of a penthouse at Vita at Grove Isle.
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