With the Tribeca Festival kicking off today, we’re pleased to exclusively debut the first trailer for Esta Isla (This Island), the debut narrative feature from Puerto Rican filmmakers Lorraine Jones Molina and Cristian Carretero. Set to world-premiere in the festival’s U.S. Narrative Competition, the film is an exploration of the Puerto Rican condition and resilience told through an unlikely couple on the run.
Here’s the synopsis: “Bebo, a teenager from a coastal Puerto Rican town, lives with his brother in a public housing complex. They fish for a living, but growing desperation drives them to illegal dealings that promise easy money. When a job goes wrong and blood is spilled, Bebo flees with Lola, a wealthy girl seeking to escape her troubled reality. As they navigate the labyrinthine mountains, they encounter remnants of a fading way of life, contrasting with the violence that follows them. As hitmen close in, Bebo must confront his choices and decide if redemption is possible, or if the sea will be their final escape.”
“Our film 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. 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,” said the directors. “This Island doesn’t explain that history—it embodies it. 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. But we also made it for anyone who knows what it means to live at the edge of visibility. 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.”
See the exclusive trailer below for the film starring Zion Ortiz, Fabiola Brown, Xavier Morales, Teófilo Torres, and Audicio Robles. Get tickets for the premiere here.
