Ellas: Mujeres en la música (2021)

After Maria

Strong Puerto Rican women forced to flee the island after Hurricane Maria have bonded like family in a FEMA hotel in the Bronx. They seek stability in their new life as forces try to pull them apart.

Feel The Noise

After a run-in with local thugs, aspiring Harlem rapper Rob flees to a place and father he never knew, and finds his salvation in Reggaeton, a spicy blend of hip-hop, reggae and Latin beats. Puerto Rico, the spiritual home of Reggaeton, inspires Rob and his step-brother Javi to pursue their dream of becoming Reggaeton stars. Together with a dancer named C.C., they learn what it means to stay true to themselves and each other, while overcoming obstacles in love, greed and pride, all culminating in an explosive performance at New York’s Puerto Rican Day Parade.

El apagón: Aquí vive gente

“El Apagón: Aquí Vive Gente” is a documentary directed by Bad Bunny and Blanca Graulau. This 23-minute film explores the socio-economic challenges in Puerto Rico, focusing on the effects of power outages and gentrification driven by the real estate and energy sectors. Through visuals and personal stories, the documentary highlights the experiences of Puerto Rican communities facing these issues.

Landfall

Hurricane María abated, the news crews packed up and left Puerto Rico, and the interest of the international community turned elsewhere. What happened next?

The Last American Colony

Puerto Rico, the last relic of colonization in the western hemisphere, has been a dependent territory of the USA since 1917. Los Macheteros and one of its leaders Juan Segarra have been fighting for its full independence for many decades.

Artificial Roles

Artificial intelligence is taking on different roles in the filmmaking space. The questions we must ask ourselves are: what are the pros and cons of this advancement? How can we work with it, and what power do we have as human beings in the face of this technology?

Your Day Is My Night

Immigrant residents of a “shift-bed” apartment in the heart of New York City’s Chinatown share their stories of personal and political upheaval. As the bed transforms into a stage, the film reveals the collective history of the Chinese in the United States through conversations, autobiographical monologues, and theatrical movement pieces. Shot in the kitchens, bedrooms, wedding halls, cafés, and mahjong parlors of Chinatown, this provocative hybrid documentary addresses issues of privacy, intimacy, and urban life.

La última gira

Legendary singer Daniel Santos lives in Ocala, Florida, and prepares his biography with Secre, a young journalist. The memory of past glories makes him embark on one more adventure: a tour of South American countries where he was known as “El Jefe” (The Chief) and where he expects to be yet again acclaimed and applauded.

El puente

The efforts of a community to build a bridge which would allow their children to go school during the rainy season.

Desigualdad y Pobreza

Plot unavailable

Burn Me Back

Peggy Robles-Alvarado is a Jerome Hill Foundation Fellow in Literature, a Latinx Playwrights Circle Fellow, and a three-time International Latino Book Award winner who authored Conversations With My Skin, and Homage To The Warrior Women. In this film by New York-based filmmaker Matt Haller, she recounts the grief and pain of losing her father, interwoven with her Puerto Rican heritage.

Todavía Estamos Aquí

We Are Still Here is a student-made documentary from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez campus (UPRM) about the lives and experiences of the Peñolanos from Barrio Rucio and adjacent communities who have resisted generations of adversities due to their geographical location and at the hands of the Puerto Rican government. Centered on resistance and collective care among communities, this inaugural documentary produced by the Oral History Lab at UPRM and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities showcases how community work by projects like Aula en la Montaña and organizations like Impacto Juventud GC Inc. demonstrate that strength lies in union and that true healing occurs through mutual accompaniment between community and volunteers.

Nuestra Isla Nuestro Encanto

Plot unavailable

Un diario amable

"A Friendly Newspaper" vindicated journalists in a very important sense. For the first time, from a place as influential as television, the business power that exists behind the press was summoned and held responsible for its decline.

12 Angry Men

The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.

West Side Story

In the slums of the upper West Side of Manhattan, tensions are high as a gang of Polish-Americans compete against a gang of recently immigrated Puerto Ricans, but this doesn't stop two romantics from each gang falling in love.

Carlito's Way: Rise to Power

Jay Hernandez (Friday Night Lights), Mario Van Peebles (Ali), Luis Guzmán (Carlito's Way) and Sean Combs (Monster's Ball) star in the gripping tale of the early years of gangster legend Carlito Brigante. Seduced by the power of the brutal New York underworld, he enters a deadly circle of greed and retribution. Assisted by his two brothers-in-crime, Carlito is on the fast track to becoming Spanish Harlem's ultimate kingpin. He quickly learns, however, that the only way to survive at the top is through loyalty to his friends and respect for the rules of the street. (FILMAFFINITY)

Carlito's Way

A Puerto-Rican ex-con, just released from prison, pledges to stay away from drugs and violence despite the pressure around him, and lead a better life outside NYC.

Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster

When an atomic war on Mars destroys the planet's women, it's up to Martian Princess Marcuzan and her right-hand man Dr. Nadir to travel to earth and kidnap women for new breeding stock. Landing in Puerto Rico, they shoot down a NASA space capsule manned by an android. With his electronic brain damaged, the android terrorizes the island while the Martians raid beaches and pool parties

A Show of Force

In this thriller, television reporter Kate Ryan de Meléndez investigates the death of two radical Puerto Rican activists, whom she begins to believe may have been framed and murdered by undercover American agents.

Force of Nature

A gang of thieves plan a heist during a hurricane and encounter trouble when a disgraced cop tries to force everyone in the building to evacuate.

The Rum Diary

Tired of the noise and madness of New York and the crushing conventions of late Eisenhower-era America, itinerant journalist Paul Kemp travels to the pristine island of Puerto Rico to write for a local San Juan newspaper run by the downtrodden editor Lotterman. Adopting the rum-soaked lifestyle of the late ‘50s version of Hemingway’s 'The Lost Generation', Paul soon becomes entangled with a very attractive American woman and her fiancée, a businessman involved in shady property development deals.  It is within this world that Kemp ultimately discovers his true voice as a writer and integrity as a man.

I Like It Like That

After her husband is arrested for looting, Lisette struggles for independence while dealing with her gender-confused sibling, her critical mother-in-law and assorted neighborhood eccentrics.

Asterion: or, (if you mess with the bull...)

Ricky, a 30-year-old police officer, rents a hotel suite beyond his means because he is celebrating a role he will play in a big Hollywood movie. He decides to spend money on alcohol and food while spending the entire night recording Instagram Live videos for his "fans," showing them the room and talking about what he will be doing in the movie. The night slowly unravels as various people call him, some to congratulate him, others to reprimand him for his negligent behavior.

Trauma Center

Lt. Wakes is a vengeful police detective determined to solve the murders of his partner and an informant, and joins forces with a witness injured during the shootings. After the killers pursue the witness across the abandoned floor of a hospital, she confirms Wakes's worst fears.

Once Upon a Time in the Caribbean

Juan Encarnación is a reserved jibaro with a violent past. When Pura, the woman he loves, disappears, Encarnación sets out on a path of revenge armed with his machete and his daughter, Patria, in his arms.

5-Headed Shark Attack

A beautiful island is home to thousands of species of aquatic life. Now there is a new species: the 5-Headed Shark is all heads and teeth. Shaped like a demented starfish, this monster terrorizes the open ocean before invading the beaches of Puerto Rico, endangering the once peaceful island paradise.

Machete

This 1959 film-noir take on "Othello," filmed in Puerto Rico, stars Mari Blanchard as flirtatious Jean, who marries an older man, plantation owner Don Luis, for financial security and finds herself falling for his virile foster son, Carlos. Fearing that Jean will inherit Luis's money, his greedy cousin, Miguel, poisons the bridegroom against his new wife, informing him about her passion for another.

Gun Hill Road

An ex-con returns home to the Bronx after three year in prison to discover his wife estranged and his teenage son exploring a sexual transformation that will put the fragile bonds of their family to the test.

Mr. Moto in Danger Island

In Puerto Rico to investigate a glut of contraband diamonds that are flooding the world's jewel market, Mr. Moto and his sidekick, a wrestler, find themselves involved in murders by thrown daggers, the frame-up of an overstressed Army colonel, and a pirate gang led by an unknown boss who has inside knowledge of the ensuing investigation.