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René Pérez Joglar didn't come to film as a music star looking for a whim on a Sunday set. Long before taking the stage, he earned a master's degree in Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design, where he spent years drawing storyboards at the computer. The massive success of Calle 13 from 2004 was actually a wild detour that funded his real obsession.

Because his mind has always thought in shots before verses.

For a decade, he directed his own music videos with a striking visual intensity. In 2017, he shot the video for Somos anormales in Madrid, raising eyebrows, and later brought Penélope Cruz on board for the musical short film 313 in 2024. He didn't hire directors to hand off the work; he sat in the editing room and debated every cut. He won 34 Grammy Awards between the band and his solo career, but his ultimate goal wasn't on the sales charts.

Stepping in front of the camera

In 2024, he decided to step behind the camera without a safety net. He made his acting debut in In the Summers, an independent drama directed by Alessandra Lacorazza. He played Vicente, a father struggling with severe addiction who tries to hold on to his bond with his daughters during summer visits in New Mexico. His performance avoided theatrics and leaned into a tense restraint that left critics stunned.

And the gamble paid off perfectly.

The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024. Instead of landing supporting roles in made-to-order comedies, he used that recognition to fortify his own production company, 1868 Studios. He knew exactly which story he wanted to tell and who he wanted to sit down and write it with.

Colonial Gunpowder and Top-Tier Cast

His definitive move into narrative directing began when he teamed up with Alexander Dinelaris, the Oscar-winning writer of Birdman. The two spent months writing the script for Porto Rico, a period drama conceived as an anticolonial western set in the late 19th century. The plot recreates the peasant uprisings and the figure of guerrilla fighter José Maldonado Román, known as Águila Blanca, against colonial rule.

The American film industry saw the project and wrote the checks right away. For the lead role, he cast Benito Martínez Ocasio in his first major dramatic role. Around him, he assembled names that rarely share the spotlight: Javier Bardem, Viggo Mortensen, and Edward Norton, who also came on board as a co-producer through his company Class 5 Films.

But a movie's muscle is measured by its crew.

For the cinematography, he hired Anthony Dod Mantle, Oscar winner for Slumdog Millionaire. The production plan set aside entire weeks of location shooting in the humidity of the Puerto Rican jungle, using anamorphic lenses and a shooting schedule subject to Caribbean hurricanes.