René Marqués

Brainless Juan

An adaptation of Luis A. Maisonet’s 1959 film "Juan sin seso", Israel Lugo’s "Brainless Juan" looks at how, half a century later, celebrity influences the individual. Using the original audio from the 1959 film, "Brainless Juan" shows images of everyday life in Santurce’s streets and back alleys, using subtle irony to deliver a strong message.

The Oxcart

Portrays the causes of emigration to the United States in a Puerto Rican family.

La plena

One of the DivEdCo's films that best depicts the history and evolution of another genre of popular music from the coasts and of African origin: the plena. It presents sequences of interpreters of those rhythms in Ponce, in the dances of the coastal areas, and the fusion of popular and refined genres in presentations by Ballets de San Juan of the ballet-plena by Amaury Veray, "Cuando las mujeres" ("When the Women").

Chela

It presents the problem of physically disability through a young crippled and the attitudes of the community towards them.

Milagro en la montaña

The film recreates the miracle of the birth of Jesus in a Puerto Rican field. It begins with the pilgrimage of Mary and Joseph, the birth of Jesus, and the arrival of the Three Kings.

Brainless John

A man believes all the advertising he hears.

Intolerance

A melodramatic romance that tells the story of a community that shuns the arrival of a new neighbor.

El secreto

Illustrates the dilemma of a sugarcane worker who has a child out of wedlock without his wife’s knowledge.

¿Qué opina la mujer?

The role that women should play in the modern-day Puerto Rican family is discussed. The discussion is dramatized by a rural husband and wife involved in a domestic dispute.

When Fathers Forget

A family relationship drama about a strict father who wants to control his son, who in turn leaves his father's house and moves to the city.

Modesta

Prize winner, Venice Festival 1956. The DivEdCo’s most important attempt to depict women’s rights in the context of modernization processes in Puerto Rico. Modesta leads a group of women in Barrio Sonadora, Guaynabo, in a strike against their husbands to demand their rights in a domestic context.

Ignacio

Recreates the town meetings which were a staple of the DivEdCo project. True-life residents debate community priorities, in this case the advisability of building parks and roads before dealing with the severe health issues caused by the town’s water supply. Afflicted by personal tragedy, Ignacio, the common man, finds the courage to challenge the reigning leadership.

A Voice on the Mountain

Field workers in Puerto Rico want to have a night school.

Desde las nubes

The first documentary produced by the Division of Community Education (DivEdCo) featuring modern and experimental audio techniques with aerial shots of Puerto Rico showing its topography, educationally inserting the island within a world-wide historical context and highlighting its agricultural and social landscape.

Pueblito de Santiago

Adapted from Mexico's "The Forgotten Village". It deals with the fight that develops from the superstitious and ignorant interpretation of a problem and its real, scientific solution.