Short Film Program 4
Join us for a collection of short films made by the brightest and upcoming Latinx filmmakers.
M.O.M.
Spain / 2021 / 20 min / Sci-Fi / USA Premiere
Synopsis
Nao’s daily life is guided by MOM, an advanced artificial intelligence capable of adopting an overprotective role in people’s daily activities to the point of controlling and manipulating their lives.
About the Director, Patricia Huguet
Patricia is an emergent director based in Barcelona. She graduated in Audiovisual Communication at UAB, where she directed her first amateur short films. Since 2018, she is professionally dedicated to cinema production while she does various audiovisual creative pieces. Her short film M.O.M. is her debut as a fiction director.
The Moon and the Hummingbird
USA / 2021/ 15 min / Sci-Fi / Texas Premiere
Synopsis
Alex lives in a bunker surrounded by an uninhabitable world, but in order to reunite with Beto, the love of her life, she will have to come face to face with the dangers of the outside.
About the Director, Luis Puente
Born in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and emigrated to Texas during his childhood. He studied Media Arts at Brigham Young University, where he learned to develop his voice as a filmmaker. His work carries the themes of immigration, cultural heritage and spirituality that he observes in his day to day life.
Bestia
Chile / 2021 / 16 min / Animation / Houston Premiere
Synopsis
Inspired by real events, “Bestia” enters the life of a secret police agent in the military dictatorship in Chile. The relationship with her dog, her body, her fears and frustrations, reveal a macabre fracture in her mind and a country.
About the Director, Jean Lee
Hugo Covarrubias, (Santiago, 1977): stop motion director and animator. He is the founder of the Maleza theater company, pioneers in mixing theater with animation, where he co-directs the plays “Maleza” and “Un Poco Invisible”. Director of the short films “El Almohadón de Plumas” and “La Noche Boca Arriba”. With Zumbástico Studios, he has directed the series “El Ogro y el Pollo”, “Horacio y los Plasticines” and is co-creator and director of the series “Puerto Papel”. He is currently the art director of the series “Zander” and is directing his third short film “Bestia”.
Borrachero
Canada / 2020 / 9 min / Animation / Texas Premiere
Synopsis
“Borrachero” is an experimental animation that tells a story of psychotropic plants, crime, and Colombian society. This Colombian-Noir begins with a woman involved with a criminal gang that uses a powerful concoction made from the Borrachero tree to rob unsuspecting victims. After a robbery goes wrong, she flees to her hometown in southern Colombia. Along the way, she encounters a mysterious figure, which might be the embodied spirit of an ancient plant. “Borrachero” is also a genre piece about the resilience and mysterious power of these plants.
About the Director, Gustavo Cerquera Benjumea
Gustavo Cerquera Benjumea is a Colombian-Canadian animator, music video director, festival programmer, and educator. His work is influenced by psychedelia, visionary art, genre filmmaking, and Colombia’s history of violence. His work has been exhibited internationally at galleries and festivals, such as the Ottawa International Animation Festival, Slamdance Film Festival, Glas Animation Festival, Los Angeles Latino Film Festival, PÖFF Shorts, among others. Gustavo has also directed music videos and performances for Grammy-nominated singer, Lido Pimienta.
Barrio Frontera
Argentina / 2021 / 18 min / Texas Premiere
Synopsis
A teenage girl from a poor rural village in northern Argentina moves to Buenos Aires to pursue a life with more opportunities and the hopes of helping her family back home. Sharing a small room in a large informal settlement with her older cousin’s family, she must quickly adapt to this radically different urban environment.
Directed by Reed Purvis
Sancocho
Colombia / 2021 / 3 min / Documentary / Texas Premiere
Synopsis
Sancocho tells of the complexity and duality of growing up “LatinX” before the label existed.
About the Director, Gabriella Canal
Gabriella is a documentary producer and director living in New York City, working around the world. Through writing, photography, and filmmaking she produces content guided by originality and truth, and rooted in human stories focused around immigration and women’s issues. She also has an appetite to highlight the efforts of those working to improve human lives and protect the environment.
Death & Deathability (A Period Piece)
USA / 2021 / 12 min / Family / Houston Premiere
Synopsis
Mystified by the unexpected arrival of her first period, Ceci (Blanca Ordaz) calmly concludes she’s dying. Yet she doesn’t want to bother Dad with it, so she prepares a bucket list (including her first real kiss) and her funeral, because death should be an art.
About the Director, Maria Victoria Ponce
Originally from Michoacán, Mexico, Ponce is a San Francisco Bay Area film director/writer who grew up in Richmond, California. She appreciates the complexity in the routine lives within poor and working class neighborhoods, and themes of sexuality and coming of age tend to recur in her work. Ponce is a Cine Qua Non Lab fellow, NALIP Latino Media Market fellow, a Latino Screenwriting Project fellow, and an artist resident at SFFILM FilmHouse 2018 and 2019.
