From the Kitchen to the Culture: Being Featured in IMPACT Magazine

When I first started working on Sugar Dumplin’, I knew I was telling a personal story—but I didn’t expect it would land me in the pages of IMPACT Magazine alongside some of the most inspiring brothers out here doing the work.

This month, I was deeply honoured to be featured in IMPACT’s Men of Impact issue during Men’s Mental Health Month, and I don’t take that lightly.

As a Jamaican-Canadian filmmaker, father, and husband, I carry a lot of stories inside me. Sugar Dumplin’ is one of them—it’s a film about reconnection, memory, legacy, and the messiness of love within Caribbean families. It’s about a daughter trying to understand her father before it’s too late. It’s about food, silence, and everything we inherit emotionally that can’t be put into words.

But more than that, it’s a film about what it means to be a man, not just strong, but vulnerable. Not just present, but emotionally available. Not perfect, but real.

Being featured in IMPACT Magazine, under the guidance and vision of Tunisha C. Brown, means more than a spotlight. It means this story is resonating beyond the film festivals and into the community, into spaces that care about healing, heritage, and humanity.

We often don’t give Black men the space to feel. We teach them to carry, to perform, to survive—but rarely to be soft, to grieve, to reflect. This feature was a reminder that the work we’re doing through Sugar Dumplin’ isn’t just artistic—it’s emotional resistance. It’s permission. It’s legacy-building.

Thank you to IMPACT Magazine and to everyone who’s lifted this project with your support, love, and encouragement. This one’s for every man learning to show up fully—flaws, feelings, and all.

Check out the full feature here:
👉 https://www.theimpactmagazine.com

— Tristan Barrocks
Writer | Director | Producer
Sugar Dumplin’ | @tristanbarrocks | @midcareerproductions