The origins of the new film “Esta Isla” (“Our Island”) can be traced back to a passage from Octavio Paz’s “Labyrinth of Solitude,” according to co-directors Lorraine Jones Molina and Cristian Carretero.
Paz writes:
All of us at some moment have had a vision of our existence as something unique, untransferable, and very precious. This revelation almost always takes place during adolescence. … Much the same thing happens to nations and peoples at a certain critical moment in their development. They ask themselves: What are we, and how can we fulfill our obligations to ourselves as we are?
In the movie, Bebo, a teenager scraping by in a coastal town in Puerto Rico, lives with his older brother in a public housing complex. Fishing is their lifeline, but as desperation grows, they’re drawn into illegal activities that promise quick money but come with dangerous consequences. When a deal goes wrong and blood is spilled, Bebo is forced to flee with his girlfriend Lola, a girl from a wealthy family who’s equally eager to escape her own troubled life.
Their journey takes them deep into the island’s mountainous interior, a place of both refuge and peril. As they navigate the dense, labyrinthine terrain, they encounter old traditions and the remnants of a fading way of life, contrasting sharply with the violence that follows them. Despite the beauty of the mountains, Bebo and Lola are never truly safe, with hitmen closing in and the ever-present threat of being surrounded by the very ocean that once provided their livelihood.
Their flight becomes a test of survival, not just from their pursuers but from their own inner demons and the realities they can’t outrun. As they push deeper into the wilderness, Bebo must confront the choices that led them here and decide whether he can ever find redemption—or if the sea will be their final escape.
For Jones Molina and Carretero, the movie “was born from a tension we’ve lived our entire lives: being from a place that is technically ‘American,’ yet constantly othered, exploited and erased,” they say.
Puerto Rico exists in a strange in-between — not quite a nation, not quite a state — with a history marked by resistance, creativity and deep colonial trauma, according to the directors.
“‘This Island’ doesn’t explain that history — it embodies it,” they say. “Through characters trying to escape, to love, to fight back, the film captures what it feels like to grow up under the weight of empire and still dream of freedom. We made this film for Puerto Rico — for the neighborhoods that raised us, the music that carried us, and the ancestors who refused to be silenced.”
At the same time, Jones Molina and Carretero made it for anyone who knows what it means to live “at the edge of visibility.”
We made this film for Puerto Rico — for the neighborhoods that raised us, the music that carried us, and the ancestors who refused to be silenced.
“We wanted to make a film that felt like memory, like something inherited. It’s about survival, about beauty under pressure, and about how colonialism doesn’t just show up in history books, it shows up in our relationships, in the way we move through the world.”
Prior to opening in select theaters in New York City, N.Y., U.S.A. on March 20, “Esta Isla” had its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival, where it won Best New Narrative Director, Best Cinematography and a Special Jury Mention.
The film also won the John Cassavetes Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, becoming the first Puerto Rican film to receive such a distinction.
Check out the trailer below.
