La Pecera (The Fishbowl), the debut feature by director Glorimar Marrero Sánchez, made history this morning becoming the first Puerto Rican film to ever nab a nomination for Spain’s Goya Awards. The Puerto Rican drama was nominated for Best Ibero-American Film, and will be competing against The Eternal Memory / La memoria infinita by Maite Alberdi (Chile), Puan by María Alché and Benjamín Naishtat (Argentina), Simón by Diego Vicentini (Venezuela), and Alma viva by Cristèle Alves Meira (Portugal).
La Pecera, which had its world premiere in World Cinema Dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival last January, is set in Vieques, the small island in the Puerto Rican archipelago that was a U.S. military testing ground for napalm, depleted uranium, agent orange, and other toxic munitions. The film tells the story of Noelia, a 40-year old artist (Isel Rodríguez in an elegant performance), who is faced with terminal cancer and decides to use what little time she has left to resist the legacy of U.S. colonialism.
When Noelia discovers her cancer has metastasized after several years in remission, she returns to her home in Vieques, where her mother lives. Without access to treatment on the island, she keeps her cancer a secret and throws herself into the work she had dedicated herself to years before—denouncing pollution left by the U.S. military. As Noelia’s health worsens and a hurricane threatens the island, she rekindles an old romance, and faces the decision to leave and seek treatment or stay with her community.
With a mostly female cast and crew, La Pecera (The Fishbowl) is a compelling drama and poignant commentary on environmental racism, colonialism and other urgent issues of our time, and demonstrates Marrero Sánchez as a unique and necessary voice from Puerto Rico.
