Raisa Bonnet’s ‘Braided’ Explores Post-María Puerto Rico

Set against a Puerto Rico still reeling from the devastation of Hurricane María, Raisa Bonnet’s debut feature “Braided” (“Trenzadas”) brings a ground-level perspective to a national trauma whose aftershocks continue to shape the island’s social fabric. 

Screening this week in Ventana Sur’s rough cut Primer Corte, the drama is produced by La Nauta and Belle Films. It turns on a mother and her two daughters forced to navigate displacement, fractured identity, and the fragile decision to remain in their home when many were compelled to abandon.

Bonnet traces the origins of the project to the months immediately after the hurricane, when communication collapsed and Puerto Ricans returned overnight to pre-digital routines. “We were left without communication across the island, no signal, no water, no electricity for three months in my experience. We lived as our grandparents once did — washing clothes by hand, surrounded by darkness, silence, nature, and neighbors. There was nothing to distract us, nowhere to escape,” she told Variety. 

“Yet in the middle of so much loss, something beautiful surfaced – people reached for one another. Neighbors became family, strangers shared food, and children played again in the streets, as if time had shifted into a slower, older rhythm.” Observing the uneven recovery firsthand, and families who lost everything while others rebuilt quickly, Bonnet found the emotional territory that anchors “Braided,” “These dualities are difficult to name, but cinema allows them to be felt.”

Central to the film is a question: ‘If everyone leaves, who stays?’ The line, contributed by lead actress Mar Cruz, emerged from her experience. “I was one of the few who stayed and it wasn’t easy,” she said. Many had to leave because they had no choice. She stayed because of her children, wanting them to see her endure and rise up. For Bonnet, the protagonist Marisol remains because leaving “feels like severing a root. After María, even people with destroyed homes often refused to leave. That kind of love burns in the chest.”

Casting was built around naturalism. Working with casting director Alexandra Talavera, Bonnet selected three actresses Mar Cruz Abril, Jonaibett Cruz Manso, and Valentina Cruz Vásquez who struck up an immediate rapport. A pre-shoot beach session, led by acting coach Pedro Juan Colón, helped forge the trust that underpins the film’s improvisational approach. “There was a spiritual trust, a bond between all of us,” Bonnet explained.

Visually, the film shifts aspect ratios across three acts to mirror the characters’ emotional trajectory. “Act 1 is claustrophobic, gritty, and chaotic, captured in a tight aspect ratio that confines the world and immerses the audience in the disorientation of post-disaster life.” cinematographer Sheldon Chau noted. 

“Act 2 shifts to a tense but cautiously hopeful period of transition, with the 1.85:1 frame offering a bit more breathing room as the characters, and the world, begin to adjust. By Act 3, the story reaches a place of acceptance and renewal, expressed through a wide 2.39:1 aspect ratio that reflects an opened-up landscape and the characters’ evolution, even as they have drifted further apart.”
Developed at Trinidad and Tobago’s script lab, Málaga’s co-production market, EAVE Puentes and, notably, Punto G at Ventana Sur in 2020 which the director recalls as “a turning point” “Braided” hits Primer Corte seeking a sales agent aligned with its sensibility. Producer Eliomer Laurean says the team is targeting major festivals. “What matters most is that ‘Trenzadas’ reaches people deeply, whether internationally or at home. Braided’s themes travel beyond Puerto Rico, opening both theatrical and non-theatrical windows.”

For Puerto Rican and Caribbean audiences, Bonnet hopes the film serves as a collective reckoning and offers “the possibility of healing through remembering together what we all lived.”