My Island (Mi Isla)

Mi Isla explores the question of what it means to be Puerto Rican after Hurricane Maria, from the perspective of Ezequiel Ferrer, a teenager displaced by the storm. We follow his journey between the island and Bronx, where he finds a community and a mentor at El Maestro, a boxing gym involved with the Puerto Rican independence movement. As Ezequiel prepares for El Maestro’s annual boxing match, he grapples with larger questions about his identity, his future - and the island’s.

  • Hiba Dlewati
    Director
  • Lisbeth Perez
    Director
  • Hiba Dlewati
    Writer
  • Lisbeth Perez
    Writer
  • Hiba Dlewati
    Producer
    The History Channel, A&E, Vice, Sky and Ground (field producer), Parched (field producer),
  • Lisbeth Perez
    Producer
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Mi Isla
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short, Student
  • Runtime:
    27 minutes 4 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    December 4, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    6,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    Puerto Rico, United States
  • Language:
    English, Spanish
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    Yes - Columbia Journalism School
  • Doc Fest 2018
    New York
    United States
    December 8, 2018
  • Harlem International Film Festival
    New York
    United States
    May 16, 2019
  • Puerto Rico Film Festival
    Puerto Rico
    June 5, 2019
  • Seattle Latino Film Festival
    Seattle, Washington
    August 16, 2019
Director Biography - Hiba Dlewati, Lisbeth Perez

Hiba Dlewati is a Syrian American filmmaker and journalist with a focus on migration and its intersections. Since 2014, she has covered the Syrian conflict and refugee crisis, as a National Geographic Fulbright Storytelling Fellow and as a freelance producer working with online, TV and documentary filmmaking teams across the Middle East and Europe.
During her time at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Hiba co-directed, produced, shot and edited Mi Isla, a 27-minute documentary following the story of Ezequiel Ferrer, a Puerto Rican teenager who moves to the Bronx after Hurricane Maria where he discovers boxing and questions about his identity. Hiba was a recipient of the 2018 Overseas Press Club Foundation Scholarship Awards, and completed a reporting fellowship with the Associated Press in Beirut. She is currently a fellow at Al Jazeera English in Doha.
Twitter: @hiba_dlewati
Instagram: hibadlewati
Email: hd2384@columbia.edu

Lisbeth Perez is a multimedia journalist and documentarian from New York City. She graduated from Ithaca College with a Bachelors of Arts in Journalism, where she worked for the school newspaper, The Ithacan, and campus television news network, ICTV. Lisbeth is a recent M.S. documentary filmmaking graduate of the Columbia Journalism School, where she is focused on social and political issues in the Caribbean and Latin America. She is currently a fellow at CBS in Washington D.C.
Email: lp2753@columbia.edu

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in September 2017, Lisbeth Perez and I started reporting on the Puerto Rican diaspora's response to the storm in New York City. In the Bronx and East Harlem people were organising aid drives the day after Maria hit, even as the government fumbled with its reaction to the devastation.
We wanted to make a film about the aftermath of Hurricane Maria on the Puerto Rican community, but we knew we wanted it to be a personal story, one that wasn't just about crisis but also resilience, home and love.
Mi Isla is the personal story of Ezequiel Ferrer, one of hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans displaced by the storm. It's also the story of the community he finds in the Bronx; generations of Boricuas in the diaspora.