TIERRA
Director: Fana Adjani(Oaxaca, MX)
Cast: Lukas Avendaño, Li Saumet (Bomba Estéreo)
Cinematographer: Emilio Valdés
Re-recording Mixer: Carlos Cortés
Producer - Jorge Perelló
"TIERRA is a story about the recognition of the destruction, the defense of territory, ecofeminisms, the feminist struggle and the seed, the muxe identity within the maps and geographies of Latin America. Only through the vindication of femininities can Latin America ever be free.
“The EARTH wakes up and comes closer, and it screams in my ear that it can ́t take it anymore...”"Lukas Avendaño (a nahuatl), is born in it’s house (“Mother Earth”), whilst in a forest (in the Sierra of Oaxaca) as a metaphor for the interior world, Latin America is agonizing. Lukas sets out on a journey and his gaze finds the gaze of the other woman: Li Saumet (Bomba Estéreo), they are a single entity and they know it. Lukas runs toward him/herself, finds him/herself, is transformed, Lukas ‘muxe’ (a third gender recognized within the Bernanke Za’a Zapotec communities of Mexico) is unity and strength. They accompany each other; and in a collective embrace hope and action are detonated, their femininities are a profound revolution, they are the defense of territory and seed.”
Alcohólico
Director: Lechita Kandy (Eagle Pass , TX) | Instagram: @lechitakandy
“Alcohólico” was born from my own experience with alcoholism and the physical and emotional collapse that came with it. I wanted to tell this story not as a clean recovery narrative, but as it truly felt—chaotic, grotesque, and terrifying. By using claymation-inspired visuals and body horror, I aimed to capture the distorted reality of withdrawal, where the body becomes unrecognizable and the world itself feels hostile. This film is not just about destruction—it’s about survival. Beneath the horror, it is a testament to resilience, to facing the darkest corners of the self, and to the possibility of finding a way back.”
Lechita Kandy is an experimental filmmaker, musician, poet, and karaoke host based in Austin, Texas. Their work combines machinima, outdated software, AI tools, and other unconventional techniques to create films that blur the line between the surreal and the deeply personal. With a vision rooted in telling honest stories through unsettling and dreamlike imagery, Kandy transforms the chaos of memory, addiction, and survival into haunting works of experimental cinema
Cuerpos de Papel
Director: Ximena Cuevas (Ciudad de México)
Cuerpos de Papel is a dense visual meditation on sexuality, loss, jealousy and intimacy. It uses rich sensual images to weave a digital portrait of an intimate, erotic, and emotional past. As the images transform, we are left with a slippery sense of intangibility and delicacy.
Ximena Cuevas is Mexico´s video artist extraordinaire : half magician, half mermaid, master of all she surveys. Cuevas looks upon her beloved metropolis of Mexico City with an eye both jaundiced and passionate. At the same time, she has turned her camera back on her own daily life and charted the quotidian pleasures and crises found therein. Her camera is expressive and inventive, her editing style jaunty and edgy, her musical taste unerring. Whether her subject is lesbian romance or heterosexual machismo, you couldn´t ask for a better guide.
El Abuelo
Director: Dino Dinco (Tijuana, MX)
Shot on location in San Antonio, Texas, El Abuelo is an intimate portrait of local educator and poet, Joe Jiménez. Through the meditative process of ironing his clothes (a duty often identified as “women’s work”), we experience Joe in that familiar goal of finding the perfect crease. Of all domestic chores, ironing is the only one a “homeboy” is more than happy to master, as masterful ironing is the key to reaching an appearance of perfection. And to a homeboy, perfect creases work hand in hand with the power of attraction.Through voiceover, we hear Joe reading his poem, “El Abuelo,” and learn of the potency of ironing that’s used to capture the attention of his “first vato” – his first love of another man."
Producer: Dino Dinco & Christopher Blauvelt; Cinematographer: Christopher Blauvelt; Editor: Augie Robles
DINO DINCO is a film and theater director, performance art curator and maker, writer, and lecturer in the Department of Visual Arts at UC San Diego. Based in Tijuana, México, his work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions in Paris, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, in group shows internationally, and is included in the collection of Le Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain de Haute-Normandie, France, as well as private collections in Paris, Antwerp, Brussels, Los Angeles, Barcelona, New York and London. Dinco’s first feature length documentary film, Homeboy, explores gay Latino men who were in gangs. His award-winning short film, El Abuelo, with San Antonio poet Joe Jiménez, premiered at the Tate Modern, has screened internationally, and is included in the online LGBTQ film platform, Frameline Voices. Dinco co-founded You Wear it Well (2006-2008), the first traveling international film festival dedicated to short films on fashion. He was a Consulting Producer on the Fall 2021 installment of KCET’s Artbound documentary film series which profiled the itinerant Downtown Los Angeles queer dance party, Mustache Mondays (2007 - 2018), of which Dinco was a co-founder.
Transmission
Director: Chava Ramirez (San Benito,TX)
IG: @chavaarts
This short ask the question “What if a machine or a.i. is able to recount memories that are not their own.” This is part of an ongoing passion project that I have been working on since 2019.