In the wake of Fidel Castro’s death, Rosa, a Cuban immigrant who came to Miami in the 1994 Cuban rafter crisis, is forced to face the turbulent trauma of her past, while resisting her son’s determination to leave their life in Miami for something bigger.

Set in the emotional aftermath of Fidel Castro’s death, Tumba del Mar (Tomb of the Sea) explores the lingering scars of exile through the story of Rosa, a Cuban immigrant who fled her homeland during the 1994 rafter crisis. Now settled in Miami, Rosa is confronted with her son’s desire to move on from the life they’ve built—forcing her to reckon with the painful memories she’s tried to bury. The film delicately captures a personal and generational divide, where dreams of freedom collide with the cost of displacement.

Tumba del Mar offers a deeply human perspective on the immigrant experience, highlighting the quiet battles waged between memory and identity, hope and survival. Through Rosa’s story, the film questions what it means to belong, and whether the pursuit of the American Dream is ever truly free from the shadows of the past.

The film powerfully connects personal memory with historical moments—how did you approach blending Rosa’s emotional journey with the real-world impact of Fidel Castro’s death?

It was always about anchoring the political in the deeply personal. When Castro died in 2016, I remember how many Cuban families in Miami reacted. Not just with celebration, but with a wave of complicated emotions that reopened old wounds. It stirred memories of what was lost, what was left behind, and what was endured in the name of survival.

With Tumba Del Mar, I wanted to explore how major historical events don’t just live in textbooks, they live inside people. Rosa is a character shaped by trauma, displacement, and survival, and the death of Castro becomes a trigger that brings the past rushing back. By weaving in her memories of fleeing Cuba during the 1994 rafter crisis, we wanted to mirror the emotional weight of the present moment with the unresolved pain of the past. The goal was not to deliver a political statement, but rather to show how the personal and political are inseparable for immigrants like Rosa.

You capture both the surreal and the everyday with an almost documentary-like intimacy. What inspired that stylistic balance?

I’ve always been drawn to a docu-narrative approach. Filmmakers like Andrea Arnold and Terrence Malick have had a big influence on the way I think about grounding emotion in texture, movement, and environment. There’s something powerful about capturing life as it unfolds, without over-staging it, and letting the camera live in those quiet, in-between moments.

At the same time, I wanted Tumba Del Mar to lean into the surreal, especially when Rosa is slipping between memory and the present. Filmmakers like Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Mati Diop, particularly Atlantics, really inspired me in how they use dreamlike or spiritual elements to express what can’t always be spoken out loud. That was key for Rosa’s emotional journey. The trauma she carries is not linear or logical. It surfaces in waves, in fragments, in dreams. Blending that with a more intimate, grounded style allowed me to stay close to her reality, while still honoring the emotional and historical weight she’s navigating internally.

The story feels very rooted in lived experience—how personal is this story to you or those around you?

This story is deeply personal. Not just to me, but to the people I grew up around. I was born in Miami, and raised in a Cuban and Puerto Rican household. The immigrant experience, especially the sacrifices, silences, and complicated feelings tied to leaving one’s homeland was always in the background of my upbringing. Tumba Del Mar pulls from those stories, from the memories shared around dinner tables, and from the emotional weight I watched so many in my community carry.

While Rosa isn’t a direct portrait of anyone in my family, she’s a reflection of so many women I’ve known. Resilient, guarded, fiercely protective, and shaped by love and loss in equal measure. Her journey is fictional, but the emotional truth behind it is very real. Making this film was a way of honoring those stories, while also exploring my own evolving relationship with identity, heritage, and the idea of “home.”

How did you approach the timeline shifts between Cuba in 1994 and Miami in 2016? Were there any visual or narrative devices you used to help transition between those spaces?

Tumba Del Mar actually began as a feature, where we spent more time in the 1994 timeline unpacking Rosa’s emotional complexity. Especially the love, resentment, and grief tied to her decision to leave Cuba for a lover and a new life. In shaping the short, we knew we had to center the present-day 2016 storyline, but still wanted to layer in the weight of her past wherever possible.

To do that, we used a mix of audiovisual tools to evoke 1994. The film opens with Rosa arriving on the shores of Miami, a visual memory that sets the tone for everything that follows. We also worked with the incredibly talented Pilar Garcia-Fernandezsesma, who created animated sequences that helped bridge the emotional space between past and present. Paired with archival-inspired sound design and voiceover elements, these moments allowed us to hint at Rosa’s backstory without breaking the narrative flow of 2016.

The timeline shifts aren’t meant to be literal, they’re emotional. Rosa is someone whose past still lingers just beneath the surface, and we wanted the audience to feel that. So instead of hard flashbacks, we focused on evoking memory in more fluid, poetic ways.

Rosa and her son seem caught in two different versions of the American Dream. How did you craft their emotional tension without villainizing either side?

That emotional tension between Rosa and her son really came from the development stage and spending time trying to deeply understand both of their perspectives without judgment. My co-writer, Andres and I, watched documentaries like Balseros (2002) and revisited novels like Dreaming in Cuban and In Cuba I Was a German Shephard, all of which helped us explore the emotional complexities of exile, longing, and generational disconnect.

Coming from a Cuban family, I’ve seen firsthand how strong the feelings toward the regime can be. But with Tumba Del Mar, I wanted to step back from the politics and focus more on the human cost. What’s lost, what’s held onto, and how different generations process that loss in totally different ways. Rosa sees her son’s desire to leave Miami as a betrayal of all she sacrificed. Her son sees staying as a kind of surrender. Neither of them is wrong, and that was the key. We wanted to make sure the audience could empathize with both, even when they’re at odds. It’s about two people caught in different versions of the American Dream, each shaped by their own survival.

The film touches on how grief can shape generational choices. How did you approach this as both a writer and director?

My co-writer Andres Chaves and I, approached grief not just as something Rosa carries, but as something passed down, consciously or not, through silence, survival, and sacrifice. Writing the script, we spent a lot of time exploring how Rosa’s choices, shaped by loss and longing, ripple into her son’s worldview. He may not have lived her trauma, but he lives with the consequences of it. That dynamic felt really important to explore. How unspoken grief can shape the choices the next generation makes, sometimes in reaction, sometimes in defiance.

We wanted to keep that tension present without over-explaining it and leaned into gesture, silence, and physical distance so that the body language between Rosa and her son carried a lot of that emotional weight. Sometimes what isn’t said reveals more than dialogue. And just like grief, the emotional gap between them lingers in the air, unresolved. It’s not about placing blame, but about understanding how pain reshapes dreams, expectations, and relationships across generations.

How did you work with your lead actress to bring Rosa’s internal conflicts—between memory, grief, and motherhood—to life?

Bringing Rosa to life was a really collaborative process. Through my co-writer Andrés Chaves, we connected with the incredible Zuleyma Guevara, who plays Rosa. From our very first conversations, it was clear she understood the emotional weight and complexity of the character. Not just as a performance, but as something personal.

Zuleyma brought so much nuance, restraint, and quiet strength to the role. Much of Rosa’s internal conflict, between memory, grief, and motherhood, lives in what’s not said. We spent time sharing personal stories with each other, which helped us collectively shape Rosa’s voice and emotional world. It wasn’t about overexplaining the character, but about grounding her in truth.

We encouraged Zuleyma to lean into stillness and subtle gestures. How might Rosa carry her past in her body, or how a look at her son could carry years of unspoken history? But ultimately, so much of that depth came from Zuleyma herself. She brought a lived-in authenticity that made Rosa feel like someone you know, or someone you’ve heard about in your own family. That intimacy was essential to the heart of the film.

What camera did you shoot the film on, and how did your cinematography choices help express Rosa’s shifting emotional world?

I had the pleasure of collaborating with my longtime friend and DP, Sachi Bahra, whose sensitivity to story and character was essential in shaping the visual language of Tumba Del Mar. We chose to shoot on 16mm film because we felt the texture, warmth, and even imperfections of the format aligned beautifully with Rosa’s emotional world. There’s a fragility to film that mirrors the way memory feels. It’s grainy, tender, sometimes distorted, and that helped us express the weight of everything Rosa is carrying beneath the surface.

We wanted the cinematography to feel grounded, observational, and human, but also leave space for the surreal and dreamlike moments where her past starts bleeding into her present. The format really gave us permission to lean into the emotional shifts, letting the visual language echo the complexity of her internal world.

The production design subtly weaves in identity, nostalgia, and heritage—can you talk about your collaboration with the art department?

Our production designer, Isabella Rivera Suazo, did such a beautiful job bringing the world of Tumba Del Mar to life. From the beginning, we talked about how identity, nostalgia, and heritage needed to be present in the details. Not just as background, but as emotional texture. Bella really leaned into that, especially in the opening scene where she and her team built makeshift rafts by hand. That moment sets the tone for everything that follows, and she made it feel raw, grounded, and real.

We also had the privilege of pulling from very personal sources. My grandparents generously let us use many objects from their home. Things they’ve held onto for decades that added real emotional weight and authenticity to the scenes. And for Arturo’s room, I ended up using a lot of items from my own home, including his soccer trophies (which we later burned for a scene). It became this very organic, collective process, with everyone pitching in to help shape the world.

Like most indie films, it was a true labor of love. Everyone offered what they could, bringing pieces of their own lives into the mix. That spirit of collaboration and shared memory is what gave the film its heart.

What are the books, podcasts or even YouTube Channel that you recommend young filmmakers to get their hands on?

I always recommend Team Deakins. It’s such a generous, in-depth resource from people who really understand the craft. No Film School is another great one, especially for emerging filmmakers navigating the practical side of things. That said, I find that my biggest creative inspiration often comes from outside of film. I engage with a lot of current cinema, but I also pull from music, photography, sports, animation, and video games. I think the best tool for inspiration is staying open to all kinds of storytelling.

I love sports pages like @sportarts, @artbutmakeitsports, and Franchise Magazine that offer such a unique visual and narrative intersection between athleticism and art. Anime and animation have always inspired me too. Those worlds aren’t afraid to be larger than life, which helps me tap into the surreal elements of filmmaking I’m drawn to. Video games are also in a fascinating place right now, with creators like Hideo Kojima and Shinji Mikami constantly evolving what immersive storytelling can look like.

And music plays a huge role for me too. Someone like Ryuichi Sakamoto is a constant source of inspiration. His work is so emotionally layered and restrained, and it reminds me that mood, tone, and silence can speak just as loudly as dialogue or image.

So my biggest recommendation isn’t a single book or podcast. It’s to look everywhere. The more diverse the media you consume, the more unexpected and original your creative voice can become.

Can you share with us some of your favorite short films you’ve seen lately?

Recently, I had the chance to see Arthur Jafa’s Love is the Message, the Message is Death and AGHDRA at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris, and both left a huge impact on me. His use of montage, sound, and emotional rhythm is so powerful. It goes beyond traditional storytelling and becomes something visceral. His work, along with that of Khalil Joseph, reminds me of the potential for cinema to be both deeply personal and politically charged without ever sacrificing poetry.

I also recently rewatched Bi Gan’s A Short Story, which I find incredibly moving. The way he weaves a fable-like structure into something that feels dreamlike yet emotionally grounded is really beautiful. I love how he lets emotion lead the visuals, rather than the other way around. It’s a quality I try to bring into my own work. Starting with feeling, then finding the form to match it.

I appreciate that all of these filmmakers invite you to feel, to question, and to rewatch. That’s the kind of experience I’m always chasing, both as a viewer and a director.