The Team

Noemi began her 9-year journey with the 65th Infantry Regiment when she produced a short film on the Borinqueneers which was selected to participate in the 2000 Westchester Film Festival and 1999 New York Latino Film & Video Festival. Before that, she was a freelance advertising consultant and producer to major advertising agencies for the Hispanic commercial market. A former professional actress, she has extensive experience in theater, television, industrial films and commercials for both the English and Spanish markets. Other short films she has produced include: The Priest’s Wife which won the Documentary Category at the Dig-It-All Film Festival and the Viking Film Festival; The Paramount Movie Palace highlights the history of Peekskill’s 1920’s art-deco movie palace; Dancing to this Own Beat: Hip Hop Legend Jorge “Popmaster Fabel” Pabon profiles one of the pioneers of the hip hop dance movement; Surviving the American Dream which follows one immigrant’s experience in the United States and Native Poem, an experimental piece of Native American dance and poetry.

The award-winning film, THE BORINQUENEERS, narrated by acclaimed actor, Hector Elizondo, was broadcast nationally on PBS, on the Armed Forces Network to more than 850,000 U.S. troops overseas, and has had numerous screenings throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico and internationally. The film received Awards for Excellence from the Accolade Competition and Insight Awards and an Honorable Mention by the Chris Awards. It has participated in a number of film festivals winning the Military Channel Award at the GI Film Festival, a Best Puerto Rican Documentary award by the Rincon International Film Festival, a Best Professional Documentary award at the Real to Reel International Film Festival, and an Audience Award at the Orlando Hispanic Film Festival. As part of a special program celebrating 100 years of Puerto Rican cinema, the film screened at the renowned Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano in Havana, Cuba as well as at Casa America in Madrid, Spain. She has been honored by the Government of Puerto Rico, the National Guard Bureau, Comité Noviembre and El Instituto de Puerto Rico, amongst other organizations.

After 25 years of work on the 65th Infantry Regiment, Noemi is considered an authority on the subject and continues to be an advocate on behalf of Puerto Rican veterans. She collaborated with the Korean War Legacy Foundation to document 69 veteran video interviews in Puerto Rico, organized a return trip to South Korea for 15 veterans and their companions, helped veterans and their families lobby Congress to approve the Congressional Gold Medal on their behalf, which was approved in 2014. Noemi has written about the 65th and been published in The Graybeards Magazine, Hispanic Magazine and the Comité Noviembre Calendar Journal. She continues to conduct film presentations on the 65th Infantry at universities, military facilities, corporations and community organizations. Noemi serves as a Board Member with the Borinqueneers Park Education Alliance of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, a nonprofit dedicated to building a park in honor of the 65th and educating the public about their service. Her new book, The Borinqueneers, A Visual History of the 65^th Infantry Regiment, which tells the regiment’s history since its creation in 1899 with more than 700 photographs won the Military Category in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards; the Nonfiction-History Category in the Best Indie Book Awards; the Nonfiction Military Category in the National Indie Excellence Book Awards; the Silver Medal in the Best Book About Military Service category of the International Latino Book Awards; the Silver Medal in the General Nonfiction Category of the Florida Book Awards; the Silver Medal in the Pictorial/Coffee Table Category of the Military Writers Society of America; the  Bronze Medal in the Military Nonfiction Category of the Readers’ Favorite Book Awards; Honorable Mention in the Nonfiction/Reference Category of the Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards and Finalist in the Multicultural Nonfiction Category of the Best Book Awards.

Born in Sabana Grande, Puerto Rico, she was raised in Spanish Harlem and has a degree in Education from New York University and a Certificate in Digital Filmmaking from SUNY Westchester Community College. Noemi currently resides in Kissimmee, Florida.

Raquel has 30 years of experience with the public broadcasting system in production, program development and management, beginning in l968 at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. She has worked at 3 public television stations; WNET-13 in New York; WETA-26 in Washington DC; and WGBH-TV, Boston, where she spent 2 years as a producer/host of her own series, La Plaza, and a decade as Executive Producer for Community and Cultural Programming. In l990, she formed Ortiz/Simon Productions focusing on multi-cultural projects, including an outstanding documentary on Puerto Rico/US relations, Mi Puerto Rico, which premiered on PBS in l996. Raquel later became Senior Producer for VPG, Inc., a multi-media production house of educational textbook publishers. She is a graduate of the National Hispana Leadership Institute and is currently working as a free-lance creative director, producer and multi-media consultant. She has been honored with numerous awards, including regional and national Emmys, Silver and Golden Apples and CPB Programming citations.

Patricia is a documentary filmmaker with fifteen years experience in national public television programs. Recently she wrote and co-produced The Latino Paradox, a documentary on Latino health for a new series on health disparities in the U.S. As a producer and co-producer at WGBH-Boston she has worked on the historical documentary series They Made America (PBS, 2004), Reconstruction: The Second Civil War (PBS, 2004) and Chicago: City of the Century (PBS, 2003). She was nominated for a Writers Guild award in 2005 and in 1999 received an Emmy for research. Her work has also been recognized by the Organization of American Historians (Erik Barnouw award for outstanding historical program). Recently, Patricia has acted as writing and story consultant on several documentaries for film and television, among them Traces of the Trade (2007), Buddy (2005), and Damrell’s Fire (2005). She is a native of Spain.

Hector Elizondo is an accomplished film, theater and television actor, as well as a director and producer with a career spanning 40 years. He is a five-time Emmy Award nominee and won the award in 1997 for his portrayal of Dr. Phillip Watters in Chicago Hope, on CBS. He also received three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for the role. He was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an American Comedy Award for his portrayal of a hotel manager in Pretty Woman. Elizondo has been nominated and won multiple other awards for his work on small and big screens, including seven ALMA Award nominations and two wins (Chicago Hope, 1994, and Borrowed Hearts, 1997). He recently received the Diversity Awards’ Integrity Award as well as Nosotros’ Lifetime Achievement Award for the quality of roles he has chosen during his career.

Elizondo’s film credits include Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, American Gigolo, The Flamingo Kid, Nothing in Common, Young Doctors in Love, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Tortilla Soup, Georgia Rule, The Princess Diaries, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and Love in the Time of Cholera.

David was an accomplished actor, director, poet, author and radio personality of renown in Puerto Rico. During his long and respected career, he performed to sold-out poetry recitals throughout Puerto Rico, recorded 8 poetry records and published 3 books of poetry. He could be heard on the radio stations, La Cadena Radio Reloj, and on Radio Isla 1320 every Friday at 7:00 PM where he hosted a music and poetry program called Tiempo de amar (A Time to Love). He directed several films and television specials, amongst them: Un abajito y queriendo with the group Haciendo Punto en Otro Son, La juguetería encantada and La sombra de una huella, a filmic poem about Old San Juan. He was the voice-over announcer in many commercials of several important large corporations.  David passed away on July 19, 2014.