{"id":197003,"date":"2026-04-14T16:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T16:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/197003\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T16:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T16:38:07","slug":"mad-bills-to-pay-filmmaker-joel-vargas-the-weekend-warrior-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/197003\/","title":{"rendered":"MAD BILLS TO PAY Filmmaker Joel Vargas: The Weekend Warrior Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sundance Film Festival<\/a> has become renowned for its discovery and showcase for iconic new talent, both in front and behind the camera. But also, there tends to be so many new filmmakers in the competition categories, it\u2019s impossible to see everything. That was certainly the case when Joel Alfonso Vargas brought his debut feature, Mad Bills to Pay: (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo), to the 2025 Sundance in the NEXT section, where it won a Special Jury Prize for its ensemble cast.<\/p>\n

I missed it then, but then, my friend Scott \u201cSmile\u201d Dupray, who had been telling me about it after seeing it at one of the many festivals it played after Sundance. I finally had a chance to see it, and I agreed that it\u2019s a fantastic debut, following a young hustler named Rico (Juan Collado), who makes his money selling \u201cnutcracker\u201d cocktails (aka \u201cnutties\u201d) on the beaches in the Bronx. When he learns his teen girlfriend Destiny (Destiny Checo) is pregnant, she moves in with his dysfunctional family, including his single mother (Yohanna Florentino) and argumentative younger sister Sally (Nathaly Navarro).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a movie that\u2019s funny and poignant, that\u2019s as much about Rico and his relationship with his family, as it is about living in the Bronx with very few opportunities and resources. It\u2019s also about growing up and becoming an adult when the need arises. Even if you\u2019ve never been to the Bronx, Mad Bills to Pay is a highly relatable character drama that features four amazing actors\u2026 hence that Sundance prize.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, I just had to have Joel (pronounced similarly to Superman\u2019s father) on The Weekend Warrior Show, to talk about making this terrific first feature, essentially as a student film, filming in the Bronx, finding his cast, and lots more!<\/p>\n

Mad Bills to Pay will open at the Film Forum<\/a> in New York City on Friday, April 17, but presumably, it will open in other cities after that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sundance Film Festival has become renowned for its discovery and showcase for iconic new talent, both in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-197003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-the-bronx","13":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","14":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}