Femme Frontera Filmmaker Showcase

HOMESICK
Narrative Short
Directed by Valeria Contreras

“Homesick” is a modern-day tale of two star-crossed lovers, separated by a global pandemic and the U.S.-Mexico Border. This film focuses on the love and bond that unites people and communities across borders—and the heartbreak that exists when that unity is broken.

BARTER
Narrative Short
Directed by Ziba Karamali, Emad Arad

A short about a family whose fundamental relationships have been replaced with a chain of anomalous ones. A film that, despite most of the well known Iranian shorts and features, not only talks about Iran but also about a subject that involves every society.

SEEDS
Narrative Short
Directed by Morningstar Angeline, Ajuawak Kapashesit

Without parents to guide them, Loretta and Raven reflect on the love their parents modeled and the grief of their loss. While one finds catharsis in their mother’s old VHS camera the other struggles with a potential pregnancy.

SHIPPING THEM
Narrative Short
Directed by Ryan Rox

A non-binary day-dreamer pines for the life of the girl next door, but soon finds out the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

LIONESS
Narrative Short
Directed by Molly E. Smith

Barricaded in a motel room, a mother’s determination and primal instincts kick in to protect her child’s innocence.

BLUE VEIL
Experimental Short
Directed by SHIREEN ALIHAJI

In the wake of 9/11 and after losing her mother, Amina, a Muslim teenager, struggles with the gaze of Islamophobia from surveillance to the 24-hour news cycle until she discovers and begins sampling her mother’s record collection.

MOMMYLAND
Animated Short
Directed by Aijian Chen

A young woman wakes up to find herself lying on a small glowing island, an amusement park called Mommyland, exploring various rides such as a roller coaster, carousel, and distorted mirrors, which all remind her of her fears and anxieties about pregnancy.

LA BI-VENCIA
Documentary Short
Directed by Mariana Gongora-Reyes, Analaura Cardenas

Drawing on images from a non-existent border between Santa Elena, Chihuahua, and Big Bend National Park in Texas. La Bi-vencia explores the reunion of a ghost town next to the Rio Grand that was abandoned after 9/11.

The filmmakers, Mariana Gongora-Reyes and Analaura Cardenas were selected fellows of Femme Frontera’s 2022 La Frontera Film Lab made possible by the support of the Sundance Institute.