The San Luis Obispo International Film Festival has given SLO Review the opportunity to preview some of the narrative and documentary films on the festival’s April 24-29, 2025 program schedule. Follow the links to purchase tickets to see these notable films for yourself.
More Than Meets the Eye
There’s more going on in the small town of Boca Chica than meets the eye.
It seems that the Vasquez family is related to the most famous musician from the Dominican Republic and all is fine. But is it?
In this Spanish language film directed by Gabriella A. Moses, two matriarchs run the family restaurant, and to the people outside the family, they look like they are doing OK. Both of their sons have moved to the United States to pursue their dreams, and the mothers are left to raise a 12-year-old girl who has dreams of following in the family’s footsteps of becoming a musician.
Desi (Scarlet Camilo) isn’t like the others in the village. She can’t find her place. She is a pre-teen more comfortable wearing her older brother’s hand-me-down clothes and sneakers instead of dresses. Is her place singing? Is it becoming a working girl who supports her family like many other teenagers? Is it transforming into a princess, like the nickname given to her by her family?
This drama pulls at your heart strings in universal themes: Should you tell the truth or put on a front for others? How do you support your family without losing yourself?”
Desi finds that singing fills her bleak world with colors. She learns about rap music and how it can reveal the truth. She stumbles onto a neighborhood group that has designed songs around the bad living situations in the area and she is inspired to write her own music with a hint of rap lyrics.
But the screenplay by Mariana Rondon and Marite Ugas reveals that the family is struggling to pay their bills and to keep the restaurant doors open. And we hear talk about the previous struggles the sisters have had to get out of these circumstances. But they haven’t quite accomplished that.
The family’s turmoil comes to a head when a rich cousin from America comes home to wed. The family wants to throw a huge wedding with no concern about how much it costs, both literally and figuratively. One of the matriarchs tells Desi that the family needs to be concerned about the people that are coming, not about their own feelings or well-being.
Desi works with a friend to write a song—about how she wants to make a better life—that she plans to perform at her cousin’s wedding. After she performs, her brother, who is the best man at the wedding, adds fuel to the fire by revealing that the family has been living a lie for many years.
It also turns out the rich cousin and fiancé have their eyes on Boca Chica and are planning to take advantage of many of the young women who live there by selling them to tourists (mostly businessmen) that come to visit.
Desi, who has shown she can be resilient under traumatic circumstances, and her brother have to decide whether to pursue their musical dreams.
This drama pulls at your heart strings in universal themes: Should you tell the truth or put on a front for others? How do you support your family without losing yourself?
Editor’s Note: Screenings of Boca Chica (Dominican Republic, run time 96 minutes, rated R, in Spanish and English with English subtitles) at the SLO International Film Festival are sponsored by Rosh Wright.