This Puerto Rican couple made history with their new anti-colonialist film, 'Esta Isla'

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Set us as preferred Famous for its walls bearing scribbles and sketches left behind by patrons for over 60 years, El Batey, a bar in Old San Juan, is a Puerto Rican institution serving locals and tourists alike.It was inside this famed establishment that filmmakers Lorraine Jones Molina and Cristian Carretero first met one night back in 2008.Since then, the two have joined forces in both life and art; they are a married couple, as well as parents and close collaborators on film projects.Their first feature, “Esta Isla,” which is now available on VOD, made history as the first Puerto Rican film to win at the Independent Spirit Awards in February, taking home the John Cassavetes Award honoring a production made for under $1 million.

At the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival, it received three prizes, including best new narrative director.A politically charged, coming-of-age road-trip movie, “Esta Isla” follows Bebo (Zion Ortiz), a young man from the “caserios,” or projects, and Lola (Fabiola Victoria Brown), a well-off girl unhappy in her bubble of privilege.Violence forces Bebo to run away to the mountains.

Lola tags along and together they come across a series of people who expand their worldview.There’s a grounded, earthy lyricism to the images captured in “Esta Isla” that show a Puerto Rico that’s at once lush and entrancing but also undiscovered and unseen in cinema.Key to their professional success thus far, the filmmakers believe, is their loving personal bond.“We’re always together and talking about ideas.

When we were working on ‘Esta Isla,’ it helped a lot to really dig deep and have long conversations about certain details and topics,” Carretero says during a recent video call.“We do mostly everything ourselves, just me and Lorrie.

Sometimes I do camera, Lorrie does sound.We keep it pretty ...