Where Dreams are Bought and Never Sold (PawnShop Dream)

A dream, held at arms length but never quite obtainable; never promised but made to seem achievable. For well over 100 years the dream has been on sale, it has been bought over and over again but, then again, never quite sold. Leaving a homeland behind, for many, seemed like the only viable option and coming to closeness with ever achieving that dream.

From writer and director, Vagabond Beaumont, of the short film, Machetero, comes another film entitled, Pawnshop Dream. As Vagabond describes it:

...it’s a surrealist comedy with its roots planted in the political soil of Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde and heavily influenced by the surreal Nuyorican poet and playwright Rev. Pedro Pietri. The film follows a teenage girl (played by Alexis “Flea” Fernandez) who sees a beautiful box of sand in a Pawnshop that she wants to buy. She goes in and asks the owner of the Pawnshop what it costs but the Pawnshop owner refuses to tell her. He only tells her what that she can’t afford it. The teenage girl really wants the box of sand, so the Pawnshop owner offer to put it on layaway and the teenage girl accepts putting down whatever money she has. cont...

And so the story continues, in limbo is the dreams and emptier are the pockets and purses of those believing in the dream of a piece of the pie being served to the Caribbean colony. Never a day goes by when the hammer of colonialism and capitalism drives another nail into the heart of the island. How many more can it sustain before the beats end?

Colonialism is a tool of capitalism and PAWNSHOP DREAM is a surrealist expose on the reality of that relationship. Colonialism and capitalism are historically intertwined. Although the film uses the "nation-less nation" (as Rev. Pedro Pietri calls Puerto Rico) as an example of how capitalism uses colonialism to amass financial profits that metaphor can be applied to all the victims of capitalism... Each of us is colonized by capitalism's false prophecy of prosperity...-Vagabond

It's only a dream..