The Tribeca Film Festival in New York premieres this Monday the new film by filmmaker Carlos Ruiz-Ruiz, ‘Summer of Three’, a portrait of the new generations of Puerto Rico starring his son Marcel.
The film follows Javi (Marcel Ruiz), a Puerto Rican teenager living in Los Angeles who, after the death of his grandfather, returns temporarily to the island, where he meets Luife (Paolo Schoene) and Kiki (Kiki Montilla).
Between the nature and the sea of the Puerto Rican towns of Manatí and Vega Baja, Javi faces grief and adult life while a budding love triangle blossoms among the three friends.
‘Summer of Three’: A generation that sets “a global standard”
Throughout the hour and a half long feature film, father and son put the spotlight on the new generation of young Puerto Ricans, not only through the main characters but also through the soundtrack, which includes songs by Bad Bunny and other Puerto Rican artists.
“We wanted to make a genuine portrait of this generation of young people in Puerto Rico, which is setting a global standard, and make the public spend a summer on the island,” explains Carlos Ruiz in a virtual interview with EFE.
Javi’s story is inspired, in part, by the Ruiz family’s migration to Los Angeles when Marcel was nine years old: “He left everything here, friends and language, to leave, but he never lost contact with Puerto Rico”.
“It’s that question of the Puerto Rican diaspora or of any country, that when you leave, you raise your flag more and you want to take your culture with you,” said the filmmaker from his residence in Puerto Rico.
Marcel, who currently lives in New York, explains that his time at university, during which he spent “more time than usual” in Puerto Rico, also played an important role in writing the script with his father.
Gentrification of the island
As a backdrop to ‘Summer of Three’ is the “colonial” status of the island, a U.S. Commonwealth, and its remarkable gentrification.
“The cool thing about representing this new Puerto Rican generation is that over the years there is a growing awareness of being a colony, like it’s part of our identity,” says Marcel.
But, he insists, it is not just about that, but about “being in some way revolutionary”: “That is reflected in our individual pride in our island, that no matter how small it is because what we achieve on a global level is always much bigger”.
His father mentions the international momentum that Puerto Rico is having due to media coverage and phenomena such as reggaeton, which now has Bad Bunny as one of its greatest exponents.
And he refers to the gentrification of the island: “We go to places that used to be quiet places, with granny restaurants, and now there are lines of tourists waiting to get in”.
“It feels like we are losing a little bit of what we love and what we are so proud to have. That includes apartments in the San Juan neighborhood as well as beaches and the language,” Marcel notes.
Although the film is notable for its Puerto Rican slang and stories, it is actually intended to tell a local story “that could happen anywhere in the world”.
“When I studied film I realized that this is what the cinema of Argentina or Cuba do, and I said, why aren’t we doing that?” the director explained.
The film will compete in the U.S. narrative section and will be screened on June 8, 9 and 11 at several theaters in the city that have already sold out, reported Agencia EFE.
Find out more at ‘QueOnnda.com’.