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Spanish Film Festival Featuring immigrant, LGBTQ+, and women filmmakers
February 11–25, 2025 (see schedule)
Screenings and discussions 6:00–8:00 p.m.
MGC 305
Join the Spanish Program from the Department of World Languages and Cultures for the Spanish Film Festival! Screenings and post-screening discussions are free and open to the public. Films will be screened in Spanish with English subtitles, and discussions will be held primarily in English.
Presented by the Spanish Program, Department of World Languages and Culture and made possible with the support of Pragda, Spain Arts & Culture and the Secretary of State for Culture of Spain. Contact: isabelrv@american.edu
Schedule
- February 11: Cartas mojadas (2020)
- February 13: Mi vacío y yo (2022)
- February 18: Mi casa está en otra parte (2023)
- February 20: Nadie nos mira (2018)
- February 25: Boca Chica (2023)
Please be aware of potentially triggering content and use discretion when choosing which films to watch from our program.
Drowning Letters (Cartas mojadas)
Paula Palacios / Spain / 2020 / 81 min
Thousands of people risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea every year in an attempt to reach the European shores. In her new film, renowned documentarian Paula Palacios sheds light on the urgent migratory crisis taking place today.
While a mysterious voice coming from the depths of the sea reads letters written by mothers to their children, Drowning Letters follows a rescue ship of the Spanish NGO Open Arms as it embarks on a dramatic mission to save the lives of 550 people stranded in international waters. The film also takes us aboard a Libyan Coast Guard military ship and shows us the most dangerous place in the world, Libya, where human beings are abused and enslaved.
Featuring unprecedented access and must-see images, Drowning Letters is an urgent and necessary film to understand one of the most tragic chapters in contemporary history.
My Emptiness and I (Mi vacío y yo)
Adrián Silvestre / Spain / 2022 / 98 min
Director Adrián Silvestre partners with co-writer and lead actress Raphaëlle Perez to create a colorful, layered portrait of a life in flux.
Working in a call center in Barcelona after relocating from France, sensitive dreamer Raphi works through her recent diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Through it all — embarrassing dates, adapting to the rhythms of a new life, candid conversations with an exuberant support group of multigenerational trans women — Raphi chases after an elusive image of modern love that continually shifts and surprises her.
With a star-making performance by Raphaëlle Pérez, this narrative feature debut is a romantic and illuminating story of one woman’s transfeminine experience and an invigorating cinematic experience, destined to become a queer classic.
Home is Somewhere Else (Mi casa está en otra parte)
Carlos Hagerman, Jorge Villalobos / Mexico, United States / 2023 / 87 min
An estimated 11 million undocumented migrants are living in the United States under the constant threat of sudden deportation. What is it like to grow up in such a situation?
Home Is Somewhere Else shares the rich complexity of the emotional experiences of immigrant children and families to better understand and empathize with them. It invites discussion about the need for a new US migratory model based on respect for human rights for all.
In this documentary animation, three young immigrants tell their stories. Eleven-year-old Jasmine fears being separated from her undocumented parents and sets off to become an activist to protect families like her own. Sisters Evelyn and Elizabeth. Evelyn was born in the USA but has chosen to return to Mexico, while her sister Elizabeth, an illegal immigrant in Los Angeles, is struggling to realize her ambitions. Finally, Lalo shares the story of his childhood, deportation experience, finding a way back, and transforming his challenges through his work as an artist and activist.
Voiced by the actual children and their families, the stories are woven together by spoken word poet José Eduardo Aguilar, also known as Lalo “El Deportee,” the film’s host and MC whose vibrant “Spanglish” breaks codes, switches standards, and pushes the viewer to decipher his poems. Their painful experiences and vibrant hopes and dreams lend themselves well to animation. A powerful reminder of how the color of your passport determines your life.
Nobody’s Watching (Nadie nos mira)
Julia Solomonoff / Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, United States / 2018 / 102 min
What happens when a man who is accustomed to being the centre of attention finds himself becoming invisible? When a life busked from cash in hand jobs trips into freefall? Julia Solomonoff’s delicately textured character study follows Nico, the former star of an Argentinian soap opera, who trades autograph hunters for anonymity and moves from Buenos Aires to New York to take a role in an indie movie. When the project stalls, he chooses to stay believing that his talent will help him find success. Too blond to play Latino and his accent too strong to play anything else, Nico falls through the cracks and must juggle odd jobs to survive. Unwilling to return home and be seen as a failure, Nico manages to stay afloat thanks to his ability to pretend to be something he isn’t.
Nobody’s Watching is a fresh and unexpected take on the immigrant tale, where the journey is not to get a Green card but confronting the true reasons for leaving home, and redefining one’s identity in one’s own terms.
Boca Chica
Gabriella A. Moses / Dominican Republic / 2023 / 97 min
Beautifully juxtaposing the realities and expectations of a young girl approaching womanhood in the Dominican Republic, Boca Chica shines a light on the insidious child sex trade and the lives it seeks to destroy.
Director Gabriella A. Moses exposes the community’s complicity by way of twelve-year-old Desi who is constantly exposed to unwanted advances and crude comments from older men, both visiting and homegrown. She works at the family restaurant alongside her mother Carmen, who encourages the behavior, in a once serene beachside town now bustling with foreign tourists.
Music is Desi’s escape. She dreams of parlaying her nascent musical talents into a full-fledged singing career. When she stumbles across a group of local rappers that set themselves apart from the scene, her passions begin to boil to the surface. She seeks to avoid the common fate of growing mature before her time and falling prey to the morally bankrupt adults in her life who encourage her to forgo her innocence for profit.
Boca Chica explores themes of identity, family, codependency, and truth, and exposes how local social norms present the sexualization of very young girls as a path to survival.