Maribel Vega

When I was a young girl, I lived and studied in Guanica, Puerto Rico. I left at the age of 17, and after returning years later, I found the town I used to live in emptied. Almost like a ghost town. No students or people walking through the streets. Businesses closed down, the high school I attended was abandoned, and the damage to the houses and town was too much to not want to share the story in film form.

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York and in my aunt’s apartment, I saw my first movie titled La Bamba with Lou Diamond Phillips. He played the singer Ritchie Valens. I was amazed by the movie, but at the end Ritchie Died (played by Lou Diamond Phillips), I cried so much because I did not know I was seeing actors. I really thought Lou Diamond Phillips died. After some time later I saw another movie with Lou Diamond Phillips and was confused. I asked my mother how was it possible he would be in this movie if he died in the last one, and that was when my mother explained to me what actors were. From that day forward movies became a passion of mine.

The directors that inspire me are Stephen Spielberg and Michael Bay for the amazing works they have done. Though they are not my favorite movies, just the way they are made intrigues me and that would be E.T., Jaws, and The Transformers directed by Michael Bay. Now, from Stephen Spielberg, my favorites are the Indiana Jones series, Gremlins, Goonies, Back To The Future, and I can go on and on.

When I was between the ages of 10 to 11 I wrote my first story. I could see the story in my head as if it was being put there and I wrote what I saw. I wrote about love and vampires at a age that I knew nothing about love. But I saw it all in my mind and knew I wanted to see it made into a movie. I used a typewriter when I did not know how to type and when my mother complained about the noise at night, I used a flashlight and continued writing by hand each night.

There weren’t many. Except for some days of rain, which I used to the advantage of the film.

Editing was my biggest reality. I am self-taught and if I wanted to make this film happen I knew I had to do it myself. And so I did.

So far reviews have been very positive. Mainly from the people who also lived in Guanica and now lived off of the island. It gave them great nostalgia and remembrance of their island. Some have shared how surprised they were that I was able to pull off a documentary feature being self-taught.

I truly believe in original work, with only a hint or a few drops of the classic. This is only to keep the audience gripping onto something they are familiar with, but original is the way to go after that.

I do think film festivals are playing an important role in the filmmaking industry, they allow self-taught first time filmmakers like myself get their work out there to share with others and its gives us the joy of doing so. Creating a movie is not just for the filmmaker, it is for the viewer to enjoy and film festivals allow us to do that with an audience.

I plan to continue creating films and writing screenplays for future films that I cannot do on my own, like fiction scripts. Documentaries right now are very low-budget and can be made at a cheaper cost, but feature films and series cost more. I hope to someday work for a production company to see all of my writing works come to life.