The Fishbowl

Noelia, a 40-year-old Puerto Rican visual artist, discovers her cancer has metastasized after spending several years in remission. Despite the insistence of her partner, Jorge, she refuses to continue her treatment and decides to return to Vieques, the small Caribbean island east of Puerto Rico where she grew up and where her mother, Flora, lives. Once there, she keeps her cancer a secret in order to live freely and throws herself into the work she had dedicated herself to years before – denouncing pollution left by the U.S. Army after years of military exercises on the island.

However, as Noelia’s health worsens and she joins her neighbors to secretly enter closed testing areas to document undetonated bombs and toxic remains, her struggle to survive and the struggle of Vieques to recover from decades of bomb testing become inextricably intertwined. When an approaching hurricane threatens the island and Noelia rekindles an old romance, she faces the decision to leave and seek treatment or stay with her community.

“Sánchez crafts a story that is quietly powerful, approaching a catharsis that lyrically unearths how mourning is not without hope.” - No Film School

“Its images seem to shiver with an unsettling sense of urgency.” – Cineuropa

“Exposes the continuing wounds of colonization while showing Puerto Rican autonomy, grief, and grace." – Latino Rebels