2023 / 93′ / GLORIMAR MARRERO

After years of remission, Noelia’s cancer has returned and is spreading quickly. Exhausted by relentless treatment plans and pills that do more harm than good, she seeks another way out. Brushing aside her boyfriend Jorge’s well-meaning but suffocating gestures, she heads back to Vieques, the blissful eastern Puerto Rican island where she grew up; a land grappling with its own poisoning after decades of contamination from U.S. Army operations. With Hurricane Irma closing in, and alongside her mother in the serene comforts of home, Noelia looks for an answer to her pain in the land she’s always been intertwined with.

«In May 2013, my mother died of colorectal cancer and in October of that same year, I turned to write the first version of the script “La Pecera”. At that moment I longed to tell a story related to the disease and the end of life process. I developed the environmental space of this intimate drama in Vieques, Puerto Rico, an island municipality that, from my point of view, is the manifestation of the worst results of Puerto Rico’s political relationship with the United States. There, the United States Navy conducted military practices for more than six decades. The ecological, cultural and social impact of these practices turned Vieques territory into one of the places with highest cancer concentration in the country. In our story, Noelia narratively transits the stages of grief upon receiving the news of her metastasis and discovers that her body is, like Vieques, a colonized body. My experiences with this disease, and with the manifestations of the Puerto Rican colony, are the main reasons for wanting to tell this story». – Glorimar Marrero [Director]