Newport Beach Film Festival 2009

The documentary film “Scrap Island” tells the story of the car phenomenon in Puerto Rico, a small Caribbean island with one of the highest automobile concentrations in the world. Comical and tragic situations reveal the dependency to an obsession with cars. A single mother’s car becomes a second home for her and her son. Members of car clubs spend all their weekends pimping their cars and riding around to show off. Experts in public transportation try to make sense of the current situation while stuck in traffic, and a car thief candidly talks about his numerous steals. What seems to be a surreal location is actually contemporary Puerto Rico, a place where the car plays a leading role in peoples' lives.