Drawing on accounts of the conquistador Hernando Cortes' attempt to settle Baja California, as well as 16th Century cartographies and a romance adventure novel ripe with Amazons. 'California is an Island' uses lushly shot re-enactments, animations of re-appropriated map graphics, and text to investigate the fantasies, fears and fetishes of European explorers with a post-colonial, queer lens and a bawdy sense of humor to boot.