Who am I and what am I doing?

I am a video maker, artist, and educator.  In my creative work, I draw on my Colombian American bi-national identity, queer, US/Mexico border, and East-West North American experience to tackle the existential conditions and cultural contradictions experienced by immigrants from Latin America who are living in the United States.  My videos address issues of migration, memory, and identity through lyrical explorations of text, dialogue, and theatrical adaptations.  The production of this short is part of a meticulous creative process, the embodiment of years of research and story development, coalescing formal components and building supportive relationship networks.

CUANDO LA RUMOROSA CALLA (15 min. Shot in Spanish with English subtitles) tells the story of a Mexican woman journalist investigating a series of femicides in the US/Mexico border who is forced to confront the very forces she has been investigating at the end of an all-night bus ride along a mountainous border highway.  Literary in form, the film resembles a short story adapted into the Classic Latin American cinema tradition, both of which are close references in my work.  The score, inspired by folk and Latin American protest music, is created with the voice of a woman troubadour singing a sad ballad against political injustice. 

In a mix of theatrical and dreamlike sequences, the film is a compact, tense meditation on the doubts and retribution women face when they witness or directly experience sexual violence and dare to speak out about it.  In this way, the film is a reflection on contemporary social justice movements for gender equality such as Ni Una Menos, in Mexico, Ni Una Mas, in Argentina, and #MeToo, in the United States, in which, activists confront powerful and corrupt forces, with their bodies, their words, and their stories. 

Based on the play El lobizón detras la sierra  (The Werewolf Behind the Sierra) by Argentine author Gilda Bona (2011), the film is adapted and directed by me, a Colombian American filmmaker, working with an all Mexican cast and crew in the haunting landscape of the border region between Tijuana and Tecate, Baja California.  

CUANDO LA RUMOROSA CALLA draws from several cinema movements and literature in Latin American and the Global South, the feminist experimental cinema and Chicano documentary in the United States. The film fuses elements of Mexican film noir, modern Latin American theater and quixotic inferences to present a world of contrasts, marked by the beauty of the landscape and local mythology as well as state and gender violence tied to political corruption.

What We Need & What You Get

The $10,000 we are fundraising will go towards finishing post-production and output for a comprehensive distribution of the film.  Any extra money will go toward paying back costs for production and post-production completed up to now.

The cast and crew of the production have worked together to create an eclectic and unique array of thank you gifts in exchange for donations ranging from traditional corn-husk Catrina Dolls made by co-producer Santiago Madera to tours of Tijuana’s thriving music, art, and food scene and a tour of the locations where the film was shot, in La Rumorosa.

• Risks & Challenges:

Risk and challenges are many in film production and are inherent in experimental work with its niche audience and with projects that live outside the film market. With your support, I can overcome these challenges.

Please support this project if you genuinely care about innovative forms of expression and want to support work that addresses the lack of representation of Latinx women filmmakers telling stories by women writers about social issues that affect us directly.

Despite our marginalization by the mainstream media industry, we have created vibrant and effective international, national and regional networks within which to distribute our work.

By supporting this project you are directly nourishing these networks and recognizing the work made by talented young people in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico and the fact that this, and subsequent productions, will help improve independent film production by women in the region.

Other Ways You Can Help