26th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival

Program

The 8th annual Femme Frontera Filmmaker Showcase features short films by women and non-binary filmmakers from the U.S.-Mexico border regions of El Paso, Texas, Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua, México.

From the Colombian coast to New York City, CATAPUM is a powerful story of three women across three generations who discover strength in Bullerengue, an ancestral musical tradition, using it to resist, heal, and celebrate life. Their daily routines, the landscapes they inhabit, and the songs they carry reveal the depth of their experiences, interwoven with the cultural richness of Bullerengue. Themes such as oral tradition, race, community, immigration, and identity emerge within this context. As their individual stories unfold, they converge into a collective memory, offering a narrative of the Colombian armed conflict that honors the universal healing and reconciling power of music.

These shorts represent individual and community topics and concerns in their contemporary contexts. The works screened in this category are eligible for a Jury Award for Best Documentary Short.

Celebrate a special section of the Festival showcasing works by filmmakers 19 years or younger. The works screened in this category are eligible for Jury and Audience Awards for Best “Emergencia” Youth Film.

GOD SAVE TEXAS is a documentary trilogy that takes viewers on a journey through one of the most controversial states in the union, guided by three directors, each with a unique and personal perspective. In episode 3, LA FRONTERA, Mexican-American filmmaker Iliana Sosa explores how Nepantla, a Nahuatl word for the concept of “in-between-ness”, characterizes her relationship to both her Mexican heritage and her hometown of El Paso, Texas, and how that unique hybridity allowed the city to come together and heal in the wake of a devastating 2019 mass shooting.

Writer producer Donick Cary (The Simpsons, Parks and Recreation, Have a Good Trip) has been a huge fan of the Washington D.C. pro football team since before he could walk. Passed down from his dad, he was excited to pass the tradition onto his kids. Donick never questioned the team name and or Native American logo until one day, while watching a game, his 9-year-old son, Otis, asked him if it was racist. When Otis suggests they ask Native Americans how they feel, it sends the two on a cross-country journey full of unexpected surprises. From the halls of Congress (Deb Haaland) to Pulitzer Prize finalist Tommy Orange; from the creator of the show Reservation Dogs (Sterlin Harjo) to real life reservation dogs (teens on the Pine Ridge rez), the film brings to light the stories and perspectives of Native Americans from all walks of life in the United States.

“Hecho en Tejas” is a series of films produced in Texas. The films are eligible for an Audience Award and a Jury Award presented in partnership with the Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI).

In Colombia, a nation marred by profound racial and socio-economic disparities, a Black woman from a rural background challenges the status quo by launching a presidential campaign. Reappropriating the term “igualada,” Francia Márquez, catapults a movement to the upper echelons of power, by refusing to “know her place.” Fifteen years in the making, this documentary peels back the curtain on how unprecedented change can happen.

In a South Texas high school auditorium, trumpets ring out, thick guitarrón strings thrum, and violin bow hairs snap and swing wildly through the air. This is the world of competitive scholastic mariachi. This energetic documentary captures the highs and lows of Edinburg North High School’s Mariachi Oro as a green team strives for state championship. With tough love, finely tuned empathy, and a fiery passion for the music, Coach Abel Acuña guides the varsity band through a steep competition season and a fraught year in their adolescent lives. Team captains Abby, Marlena, and Bella prove the value of the skills taught in the band room as they navigate life’s challenges on and off the stage with grace, immutable work ethic, and total charm. Filmmakers Alejandra Vasquez and Sam Osborn transport their audience to this symphonically, aesthetically, and emotionally vibrant world. A directorial debut for Vasquez and sophomore effort for Osborn, Going Varsity in Mariachi is a testament to their ability to explore identity, cultural roots, and pressing social issues with a nuance that foregrounds frankness, boldness, and joy.

"A stunning tribute to the resilience of Native people and their way of life - SUGARCANE, the debut feature documentary from Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie - is an epic cinematic portrait of a community during a moment of international reckoning. Set amidst a ground-breaking investigation into abuse and death at an Indian residential school, the film empowers participants to break cycles of intergenerational trauma by bearing witness to painful, long-ignored truths – and the love that endures within their families despite the revelation of genocide. In 2021, evidence of unmarked graves near an Indian residential school run by the Catholic Church in Canada sparked a national outcry about the forced separation, assimilation, and abuse many children experienced at this network of segregated boarding schools designed to slowly destroy the culture and social fabric of Indigenous communities. When Kassie- a journalist and filmmaker- asked her old friend and colleague, NoiseCat, to direct a film documenting the Williams Lake First Nation investigation of St Joseph’s Mission, she never imagined just how close this story was to his own family."

Amidst the redwood trees on the California-Oregon border sits one of the most infamous prisons in US history - Pelican Bay. For decades, it held mostly Black and Brown men alone in tiny cells for indefinite periods based on questionable evidence. Then one day in 2013, 30,000 prisoners went on hunger strike. THE STRIKE weaves together, thread-by-thread, a half century of personal and criminal justice history into a single, compelling narrative around the drama of the 2013 hunger strike to end indefinite isolation. Grounded in testimonies from the hunger strikers themselves, the film details how the protest was conceived from a whisper inside the halls of Pelican Bay to a colossal feat across California prisons. With unprecedented access to state prison officials and never-before-seen footage from inside Pelican Bay, THE STRIKE reveals the panic that gripped the highest echelons of state government.

The lively and intimately-crafted documentary Carlos immerses us in rock icon Carlos Santana’s life and musical trajectory. Filmmaker Rudy Valdez bolsters this personal narrative with pulsating, never-before-seen footage — guided by Santana himself, in his own words.