"Right now I don't sound like a filmmaker, I sound like a businessman," observed Bruno Irizarry, writer and director of "200 Cartas" ("200 Letters").
"But it's a reality."
He wasn't mailing in an apology. When you are also one of the executive producers of your independent movie, it is probably inevitable that business and creativity will both come up in your conversation.
Happily for Irizarry and "200 Cartas," the checks have been coming in, by mail or otherwise. The romantic-comedy/road movie is now the second highest grossing film in Puerto Rico that was produced and made in Puerto Rico, Irizarry said.
The movie is currently making deliveries around the United States, and will be shown twice (April 5 and 6) as part of the Latino Film Festival, which opens April 1 at Cinema 320 at Clark University and runs until April 6. Irizarry will be on hand, along with the film's producer, Javier Enrique Perez, and editor, Pedro Javier Muniz, for a Q&A after the movie's screening at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 5. The three will also be talking to students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute on April 4.
Irizarry, talking on the telephone from Puerto Rico earlier his week, had just returned from seeing "200 Cartas" at a film festival in San Diego. "It went extremely well," he said.
In "200 Cartas," Raul (played by Lin Manuel Miranda), is a Puerto Rican man living in New York City who meets a beautiful Puerto Rican woman named Maria Sanchez at a nightclub. He is smitten, but they get separated and she disappears. Knowing that Maria was returning to Puerto Rico, he decides to go back there himself to find her. One problem — there are 200 listings for a Maria Sanchez in the island's phone book. Undaunted, Raul writes 200 letters and travels around Puerto Rico in search of the right one with a friend and two local women they hire as guides.
Irizarry's own experiences helped fuel his imagination in writing "200 Cartas."
He has also been a "Newyorcian" in New York from Puerto Rico, acting as well as pursuing filmmaking.
On one "occasion, I was living in New York, walking, it was like minus 14 degrees, and I said to myself, 'What the hell am I doing here?'" Irizarry recalled.
He wanted to set a film in Puerto Rico. "I was suddenly very nostalgic about my home. But I was missing the hook."
As a 17-year-old, Irizarry had himself met a beguiling woman in New York City, only to lose track of her. In this instance, he had to return to Puerto Rico. But not for long. "I remember going back (to New York), but I couldn't find her." Years later, the two did bump into each other. Both were with their respective spouses.
With creative license, Irizarry switched the search to Puerto Rico. That's not the only turn in the film, since the ending packs a twist.
"It's very charming," said Carmen D. "Dolly" Vazquez of Centro Las Americas and organizer and co-founder of the Latino Film Festival. "It has so many funny moments throughout the whole movie."
People have agreed. "200 Cartas" was shown in movie theaters in Puerto Rico last year for more than 12 weeks. In the U.S., Irizarry is hoping the film might pick up a major distributor. "The Latin American community has buying power that Hollywood should be interested in," he said. Meanwhile, he would like to "open a door at least to a percentage of the regular audience of the United States." In terms of television, a deal had just come through with HBO.
Irizzary also directed "Shut Up and Do It!" and the documentary "Dirty Drawings with Happy Endings."
Putting a film together is "95 percent preparation, 5 percent luck," he said. "It's not just, 'OK, I'm making a movie. What do I do?' "
Irizarry is making them in Puerto Rico. He has a new company, Brava Studios, with businessman Shimmy McHugh, who was also an executive producer for "200 Cartas."
The Puerto Rico Film Commission, created by an act of law in 1999 to develop the film industry on the island including offering tax incentives, has been playing an invaluable role, Irizarry said.
"Without them, the film ('200 Cartas') would not be made," Irizarry said.
"Right now the infrastructure on the island is not the same, obviously, as Los Angeles," he noted. On the other hand, the island can offer mountains, beach, ocean and jungle, he said, along with tax incentives and film crews and actors who are "top of the line…I wish we had more people. But it's getting better and better all the time."
Still, that 5 percent luck should not be discounted. During the shooting of "200 Cartas," a hurricane struck, it rained most of the time, and a cast member and a crew member came down with fever, Irizarry said.
He praised his producer, Perez. "In the middle of chaos, he's so calm and relaxed."
Meanwhile, Irizarry adapted to reality. He shot the movie. "I learned very quickly to embrace anything that's happening in front of me right now."
This is the 19th edition of the Latino Film Festival, and in that time Vazquez has seen changes in the films available to be shown.
"I have, in the quality of the movies very much," she said. For 2014, "all the movies are very good."
The festival is presented by Centro Las Americas, Assumption College, Clark University, the College of the Holy Cross, Quinsigamond Community College, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Worcester State University, with additional support from Cinema 320 (which shows independent American movies and foreign films).
The event's longevity is due in large part to the support of the local colleges, Vazquez said. "Because of their participation, the festival is paid for before I sell a ticket." The festival committee that chooses the films includes Vazquez and several professors.
Attendance at the festival has been averaging between 700 and 800 people for the course of its run in recent years, Vazquez said.
"Having it at Cinema 320, people used to going to Cinema 320 always come to our festival."
General admission is $6; $4 students and seniors. Films will be shown in Room 320 of the Jefferson Academic Center at Clark University.
The other films in the festival are:
"Un Amor," a romantic drama from Argentina about childhood friends caught in a heartbreaking love triangle who are reunited after 30 years.
"7 Cajas" ("7 Boxes"), about a street kid in Paraguay who makes a living as a wheelbarrow deliveryman and gets a job to deliver seven mysterious wooden crates.
"Broche de Oro," about three men who run away from their retirement home in Puerto Rico to enjoy a weekend of debauchery and fun.
"Curtain of Water," a documentary by Joe Guerriero exploring the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba.
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