Discoveries from Puerto Rico World Cinema

Jafet Márquez is a Puerto Rican drag queen living in Manhattan, New York. He wanders across both islands, contemplating the diaspora and his own shifting identities.

The prologue to an alternate history of Puerto Rico, told through a reappropriation of US colonial propaganda.

Drowned in a dense atmosphere crowded with hoarded objects and memories of a long gone past, mother and daughter share what could be their last night under the same roof.

After being subjected to endless objectification on a day-to-day basis, Ceci turns the tables.

A teenage girl tries to change her sexual orientation when her mother doesn't accept her.

Mei-Lin, a young university student is having boyfriend troubles. One night while talking on the phone with him; she hears a knock on the door. Mei-Lin opens the door to find herself face to face to a 10 year old girl. Without saying much, the girl asks her for a glass of water. Mei-Lin goes to get the glass of water, comes to the door but finds that the girl is gone. The following night, the girl returns to her door, and asks for a glass of water. Mei-Lin decides to speak with the owner of the building and discovers a shocking truth.

Culebra, an island off Puerto Rico, is used by the USA as a target area for bombing practice with live ammunition. The documentary depicts the struggles of the people of Culebra as they take increasingly militant action to put a stop to the target practice bombing of the area.

A docudrama set in the slums of Puerto Rico about a poor boy who needs new shoes.

Black Beach/Horse/Camp/The Dead/Forces was all shot in Vieques, Puerto Rico—an island that was used as a bombing range by the US Navy in Puerto Rico for 60 years, and that for the past 10 has been fighting for its decontamination. The film weaves together images of a man who cares for horses that roam the old target range; a black magnetite beach that is slowly eroding; an artist who has helped to resurrect a sacred tree which was once within the Navy’s gates and who has herself resurrected from illness more than once, a man who hopes his ritual movements return the island of Vieques to a cosmic balance—all of these are intertwined—land, toxic bomb, political work, celebration, and death.

Zuania, an island in the Puerto Rico archipelago and former US military test site, has become a popular Caribbean tourist destination. Beatriz guides them through streets populated by wild horses and into a prohibited irradiated zone. Alba Jaramillo composes a captivating speculative essay to evoke a decolonisation that never happened.

Agencia is an essay film that juxtaposes twentieth-century government agency films made about Puerto Rico alongside poetic documentation of the agency and strength of the Puerto Rican people. A story told in three parts, Agencia emphasizes the personal embodiment of agency in a propagandized state while rejecting ad nauseam depictions of Puerto Rican resilience and suffering over the course of a mediated colonial century.

What would happen if you find your calling in cleaning the city...? But then someone else had the same calling...

Puerto Rican short film that leads us towards reflection. It reminds us not to postpone and to take action. It speaks about the essence of our inner child.

Eva has lost the ability to retain new memory due to an accident during her honeymoon.

Animated short film that explores some of the recent socio-political events that have occurred in Puerto Rico.

Short horror film directed by Gabriela S. Perez.

Relationships come and go, but for Leo it was never that simple. It was not that he would become obsessed with someone, because he wouldn't; it was more the sense of loss and powerlessness when they'd leave. He felt that whenever he gave his most, they'd leave, yet somehow Gabriela stayed. Maybe because she was dangerous, maybe because she taught him how to kill; but Leo seems to think it was that she taught him how to claim and gain that power.

Francisca endures an introspective journey which disconnects her from all reality leading her to reinterpret one of Francisco de Goya's most popular of his Black Paintings: Witches' Sabbath.

After using a stripper app, Guillo, a handsome dancer who was also Pedro's classmate in high school, arrives at Pedro's house. Embarrassed by what people will say, Pedro will try to convince Guillo that he really asked for a dancer, but after a couple of glasses of wine, the situation will get out of control.

elfmädchen is an abstract portrait poem painting pretty film for an ugly world. It's about a mod gal living in Soma, San Francisco and her vivid narcoleptic dreams. Her story is told visually with stop-motion animation, rich sound and minimal voiceover but no dialogue. Each dream sequence vignette flows in & out of reality until any lines are completely blurred.

A musical story of a meet-cute in Puerto Rico

Assimilate and Destroy / Asimilar y destruir is a digital transfer of a 16mm film, which documents an ice skating rink in Puerto Rico as it melts and decomposes in salt, a mineral that, among other properties, liberates cold and absorbs humidity.

Inception into a computer screen where Molly records herself singing a song on Photo Booth.

Film for musical artist Armando Dardo Flamante. Through a main character with no obvious goal in various specific tasks, the film explores nature as a place of creative ritual.

A young Puerto Rican countryman gets chased by a mysterious creature in the middle of the rainforest.

The normalization of the American colonial discourse in the audiovisual medium during the period of industrialization in Puerto Rico.

The indecipherable relationship between matter and melancholy explored through a gay glass.

A man beset by conscience, denial, heartbreak and fear, tries energetically to escape from the only place he has known all his life, Aguirre, a forgotten sugar mill that for decades was the only hope for a bright future for local friends and lovers.

This year, Popular dedicates its musical production to the Christmas holiday season that is celebrated in Puerto Rico for a period of almost two months. The production takes the audience through the various celebrations that take place during that time, from the trullas, Noche Buena, Misa de Gallo, despedida de año, to the Candelaria. All these celebrations have taken root in the Island’s popular culture, which allows Puerto Ricans to celebrate everything that period represents with a lot of music.

Ser Familia tell the story of two women who exposed their private lives to public scrutiny in their struggle for recognition of the validity of their family on the island of Puerto Rico. The two women, Mili Vélez and Angie Acosta, confronted a legal and social system that denied Angie’s ability to adopt the daughter she and Mili had raised together from birth. In doing so, these two very private people became the public faces and voices of others seeking respect and recognition of this basic fundamental core of society: La familia.