LA PECERA (THE FISHBOWL)

USA/Puerto Rico, Spain 2023 - DCP - 92 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles

Director, Screenplay: Glorimar Marrero Sánchez

Producers: Glorimar Marrero Sánchez, Amaya Izquierdo, José Esteban Alenda

Cast: Isel Rodríguez, Modesto Lacén, Magali Carrasquillo, Maximiliano Rivas, Anamín Santiago, Idenisse Salamán

Print Courtesy: Visit Films

Director Glorimar Marrero Sanchez pulls off an amazingly difficult feat in La Pecera, melding the most personal of stories with the most political. Vieques, Puerto Rico was for decades a testing ground for the U.S. military, and Noelia (in a fantastic performance by Isel Rodriguez) grew up on this island off the coast of Puerto Rico. Though she’s moved to San Juan, when she is diagnosed with a recurring cancer, she decides to forego treatment and return to Vieques, in part to try to raise awareness of the environmental hazards that the contamination of a former paradise has wrought. La Pecera, like its heroine, makes the old adage “the personal is political” hit home. —KE