"Piñero" tells the story of the explosive life of a Latino icon, the gay poet-playwright-actor Miguel Piñero, whose urban poetry is recognized as a pre-cursor to rap and hip-hop. After doing time in hard-core Sing-Sing for petty thefts and drug dealing, Piñero's prison experiences developed into the 1974 Tony-nominated play Short Eyes. The resulting notoriety and fame was too much for the Latino bad-boy genius who retreated to the darker corners of New York City.
Acting
Benjamin Bratt disappears completely—raw, ugly, magnificent.
Direction
Ichaso's fragmented structure mirrors Piñero's fractured mind.
Writing
Dialogue that spits, seduces, and self-immolates.
Director
Leon Ichaso
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The real Short Eyes playwrights still run the Nuyorican Poets Café today—this film helped revive that legacy.
Bratt gained 35 pounds, lived in the East Village, and performed poetry slams incognito for months.
US
