Interview with Villa Encanto Writer and Director Joel Perez

Villa Encanto is a story about grief and belonging told through the eyes of a young girl navigating her rapidly changing world in 1960s New York. When her life is uprooted after her mother’s death, she’s brought to a Puerto Rican summer resort in upstate New York and rediscovers joy, identity, and community through music. 

—Joel Perez 

In 2020, co-writer Sol Marina Crespo sent Joel Perez an article about Las Villas and they decided to write a story in that setting. A draft of the then TV pilot was read aloud with actors in Los Angeles in the summer of 2021. When Joel was contacted about submitting a project to COLECTIVO, a new filmmaker program through Tribeca Studios and the Miranda Family Fund, Joel and Sol adapted Villa Encanto into a short film script and it was accepted into the program. It went into several months of script development with Tribeca Studios and the Miranda Family Fund teams. 

COLECTIVO selects a cohort of three emerging filmmaking teams to receive funding, mentorship, and the opportunity to world premiere an original short film at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. With guidance and training from Tribeca Studios and the creative team of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Luis A. Miranda, Jr., and their extended network, each participating filmmaker produces an original short-scripted film, highlighting Latinx stories and/or talent in front of and behind the camera. 

It was an absolute pleasure to speak with Joel Perez about his short film, the musical drama Villa Encanto. Full disclosure: Joel was my screenwriting student in the Tufts University Drama and Dance Department years ago. Since then, we’ve stayed in touch, and it’s been an incredible joy to see his career soar.   

Kouguell: With your extensive musical background as a singer and actor on Broadway, films, and television how did that inform your directing?   

Perez: As an actor I know the kind of set I like to be on, and the direction I like to get, so I don’t want a toxic workplace and try to let everyone shine.  

I’m always thinking about music, whether I’m on set or in the edit room. When we wrote the script, I didn’t expect to think I was making a musical.  

Kouguell: You also wrote the lyrics to the songs. 

Perez: We were going to use pop songs from the era but that was too expensive. It was a blessing in disguise. I collaborated with composer Jaime Lozano to write original music and make them our own; it was reflective in the story.  

Kouguell: Tell me about your writing process with Sol Marina Crespo.   

Perez: Sol, who also plays the owner of the club, sent me this article in 2021 about Las Villas— summer resorts built by and for Puerto Rican families in upstate New York. As a Puerto Rican, I’m always looking for stories about Puerto Ricans and I didn’t know this place existed.  

We wrote this originally as a pilot for a TV show, we did a reading, but we never got the green light. When I had the opportunity with COLECTIVO, we reimagined it as a short. We trimmed some characters and focused on the father and daughter story. We had a couple of months of script development with Tribeca and the Miranda Foundation, and it changed quite a bit. In production we had to think about how to stay within budget.  

Kouguell: The father/daughter story is very powerful, relatable, and is successfully executed without melodrama.   

Perez:  On set it was a subtle turn with the character of Teresa to show she is not a petulant child; she is seeing her father for the first time as a broken person who’s hurting too. It’s a fine line not to dip into melodrama and not spoon-feed the audience, and that came from the edit. It was the first time I worked with our editor Cecilia Delgado who was the editor of Boca Chica.  

She loved the music and resonated with the father and daughter dynamic.   

Kouguell: Tell me about your collaboration with producer Helana Sardinha.   

Perez: Helana was a producer on the Disney Launch Pad short; that’s how we met, and she was incredible. She ran such a great set. We then worked on my short The Upper Room, and then applying for this program we had to apply with a producer. Many of the team from The Upper Room, the DP, first AD, department heads, and PAs, came back to work on Villa Encanto. 

Kouguell: You shot this period film in four days on location. That’s quite a feat! 

Perez: We had a lot of meetings with our production and costume designers, hair and makeup, did many mood boards and location scouting. The COLECTIVO program was hands-on; they gave us notes, we shared rough cuts of the film, and it was great. This film was done on a low-end budget.  

Kouguell: On another creative note, you play Overlord Valentino in the animated series Hazbin Hotel. 

Perez: I always wanted to voice a character in an animated series. After 10 years of wanting to break in, it happened. 

Kouguell: As always, it’s wonderful to catch up and I’m excited to see where your artistic journey takes you next. 

 
To learn more about Joel Perez visit his site.