José María Cabral | WatchedThis
José María Cabral
Directing
Biography
José María Cabral (b. Santo Domingo, July 24, 1988) is a Dominican film director, screenwriter, and producer. Cabral started making films when he was 16 years old, making private screenings of short films to family and friends in local movie theaters, one of them “Excexos” got national distribution in 2008. His first feature film, Jaque Mate (2011), was screened at a high number of film festivals and selected as the Dominican entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist. Arrobá and Despertar followed in 2013 and 2014, also making it into the festival circuits. In 2015 he released Detective Willy a comedy adventure film. Cabral premiered his last film, Carpinteros, in January at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, a story about the realities and relationships of prisoners in Dominican jails. Another films The Projectionist (2019), Isla de Plastico (2019), Hotel Coppelia (2020)
Filmography Movies
Acting
Un Millón por Sobeida
A young team goes in search of the fugitive drug-trafficking accomplice Sobeida Félix Morel, hoping to get the reward of one million Dominican pesos offered by the authorities.
Plastic Island
An overview on the problem of waste management in the Dominican Republic, more specifically plastics.
Production
Check Mate
A famous game show host is forced to reveal all his secrets on live TV, with his wife and children held hostage.
Parsley
In 1937, near the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, a young Haitian woman named Marie is expecting her first child with Frank, her doting Dominican husband. After her mother's burial, she is awakened in the middle of the night by distant screams. The immediate execution of all Haitians on Dominican soil has been ordered — the so-called “Cut” — and what seals a victim’s fate is whether or not they can pronounce "perejil" (parsley). Marie takes off to find Frank in the next town over, with nothing but the clothes on her back.
Parsley
In 1937, near the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, a young Haitian woman named Marie is expecting her first child with Frank, her doting Dominican husband. After her mother's burial, she is awakened in the middle of the night by distant screams. The immediate execution of all Haitians on Dominican soil has been ordered — the so-called “Cut” — and what seals a victim’s fate is whether or not they can pronounce "perejil" (parsley). Marie takes off to find Frank in the next town over, with nothing but the clothes on her back.
Detective Willy
Willy Echevarria is a policeman in a small town in the Dominican Republic. He's also a fan of and yearns to be like the leads of classic Film Noir. After being fired in a bumbled operation with his bad cop partner Bruce Garcia, Willy has a chance to restore his career by finding a historical artifact that mysteriously went missing from a national museum.
Woodpeckers
Julián finds love and a reason for living in the last place imaginable: the Dominican Republic's Najayo Prison. His romance, with fellow prisoner Yanelly, must develop through sign language and without the knowledge of dozens of guards.
Despertar
What if your body is dead, but your mind is still connected to your wife's memories? René discovers an accident that changed his life forever. He will have to decide whether he lives or dies with it.
Despertar
What if your body is dead, but your mind is still connected to your wife's memories? René discovers an accident that changed his life forever. He will have to decide whether he lives or dies with it.
Woodpeckers
Julián finds love and a reason for living in the last place imaginable: the Dominican Republic's Najayo Prison. His romance, with fellow prisoner Yanelly, must develop through sign language and without the knowledge of dozens of guards.
Woodpeckers
Julián finds love and a reason for living in the last place imaginable: the Dominican Republic's Najayo Prison. His romance, with fellow prisoner Yanelly, must develop through sign language and without the knowledge of dozens of guards.
Arrobá
Three guys decide to rob a bank but everything goes terribly wrong. One of them owns a time machine and they try robbing the bank again but fail to do so. With the time machine they start traveling to the past trying to do it right. In the journey they encounter the butterfly effect and need to get everything back to how it was.