Paper Boat
written by Craig Grant Hollenback

A contemporary drama about love, hope, deception, and the quest for freedom.
Inspired by true events in a story never before told.

It's Mariel, Cuba - A small wooden fishing vessel about ten miles out to sea - it's packed with twenty five, maybe thirty refugees. Pressed against the rail, a couple, 20's and their young son. The woman's ready to give birth any day, her husband has his hand on their son's shoulder.

A state-owned patrol boat intercepts them! The larger metal-hulled vessel encircling and ramming the wooden one – spraying people with fire fighting equipment. Some flee to the cargo hold while others succumb to the high powered jets of water. The boy is gone! The mother's pointing hysterically - the father jumps overboard, searching to find him amidst floating bodies and debris. He grabs his son but the wooden boat has to make a run for it - leaving behind the Cuban patrol boat circling at high speed, creating a whirlpool that's sucking under those still floundering in the water.

It's twenty five years later. The pregnant woman on that boat was Lola Vega, she started a restaurant on the beach in Key West and raised their daughter. Lola's writing to her husband Raúl who's still in Cuba. In her love letter she includes a wedding invitation for Isabella's wedding – the daughter he's never met.

Life in Cuba for Raúl Vega has not been kind. For his failed escape with Lola, he was imprisoned and forced to cut sugar cane for fifteen years – his son Rafael was looked after by Raúl's brother Donato.

A second failed escape cost Raúl his son's life along with several family members. Since then, he's been raising the only survivor of the attack, a granddaughter named Dayami. She's ten years old now, sweet, talented and a handful for a grandfather in his fifties to look after.

Raul shares the desire of many of his fellow Cubans to leave in search of freedom. To cope with his deep aching love for Lola, he's devoted years building dozens of escape boats for others - helping hundreds come to America under the wet foot dry foot law. Everyone but himself and little Dayami.

With only a month until the wedding, Raúl has been forced to overcome his trepidations and is determined to complete his own boat and leave. Going with him is his granddaughter Dayami, his brother Donato, his young nephew Mateo and Mateo's pregnant wife Soledad .

Imagine you're on Raúl's make shift boat, built from sheets of metal, welded together by spit and courage, baking in the middle of the sea, miles from shore. Your family is with you. They are seasick, tired and thirsty. Sharks are banging the hull, creating leaks and it's taking on water. Just 90 short miles from Cuba to Key West, might as well be the distance between hell and back.

With you is a man that you have rescued along the way. An interloper now committed to taking control of your boat and returning to a land that you've struggled to escape from. Should he succeed, you and your family will end up as Cuban prisoners. Kill him and you become a murderer. Overcome evil with good and you are victorious.

This is Raul’s story about his brave and desperate voyage for love and freedom. This is PAPER BOAT.

“To see what is over the horizon, you must have the courage to lose sight of land” - Raúl Vega