Program

After the death of her best friend, Adela embarks on a journey through time to a distant autumn, where Elena eagerly awaits with detective novels and the warmth of a crackling fire. In this tale of timeless sisterhood, Adela must confront her grief and unravel the mysteries that still bind them—across memory, love, and loss. Between the absurdity of the present and the clarity of the past, she finds a space where their friendship lives on. Through magical echoes and remembered joy, Adela searches not only for Elena, but for herself.

The Felpetos have run a clandestine lottery operation for decades, quietly embedded in a modest housing development. Maribel leads a crew of clerks who record bets from her living room, while her mother Alejandra oversees the books from an identical house just a few meters away. Lately, the neighborhood has taken a tense turn—some lottery bankers have been raided, and whispers of police shakeups and suspicious money flows are everywhere. But no one knows what’s true and what’s just rumor or media speculation.

Ana is a nurse whose days are dedicated to care for Luis, a whimsy writer who's passing through his final days of living, but with whom she has forged a special friendship that offers comfort and consolation against their respective hardships in life. However, Ana needs to care for her children too; Little Elena in particular, who's suffering from a growing and strange condition that begins overescalating and turning dangerous not only for herself but for others.

Renato, Abel, and Gabriela are a family divided by emotional borders; for them, thedesire to be happy and break free from their current situation seems unattainable.The decisions they make independently will have an impact on each other's lives,demonstrating how fragile and delicate the way they are connected is.

In a tropical-punk twist on Dante’s Inferno, misfits converge at Babel, a nightclub-purgatory ruled by La Flaca—Death herself. As his contract with La Flaca ends, Dante begins to recover memories of his life and joins Monet, a ghost desperate to return to his body before it decomposes. Jacob prepares for his drag debut while hiding the truth from devout parents. Timbí descends into hell to save his father, joined by Uma, a gypsy gambling for her daughter’s life. Narrated by a devil and a fallen angel, their stories intertwine at Babel, where the living and the dead collide for one unforgettable night.

Isabel’s life takes an unexpected turn when her daughter, Madalen, asks her to visit Ramón, her ill ex-husband. After fifteen years apart, Isabel now sees him as a stranger, and old resentments resurface. Yet as she accompanies him through this vulnerable time, she begins to view their past differently. What once felt like failure now offers a new perspective—one that helps Isabel focus on the present and move forward in her own life.

Alf, a student at a strict Catholic school, finds himself drawn to Oliver, a charismatic new classmate. As their bond deepens, Alf distances himself from his longtime friends. But when faced with peer pressure and societal expectations, he betrays Oliver in a desperate attempt to prove his masculinity. This decision leads to devastating consequences that shake his sense of identity and morality. Confronting the harsh realities of toxic masculinity, privilege, and homophobia, the film offers a raw and frightening coming-of-age story where one act of betrayal reveals the deep scars left by social conformity and internalized fear.

While the renowned actress Norma Reyes rehearses a very bad and mediocre commercial play where she must play an old woman with Alzheimer's, her daughter Celeste, always overshadowed by her mother's star, decides to move out of the house. Despite the stress of rehearsals and the pain of her daughter's absence, Norma continues to push forward, but an unfortunate event will put both of their plans on hold. Her daughter Celeste will take this opportunity to mold from scratch the mother she always dreamed of having.

Linda, a captivating housemaid with a unique charm, uncovers a family’s secrets and desires. Her attraction sparks power over each member, revealing complexities beneath their seemingly happy lives. Her presence disrupts the household’s fragile harmony, as the house seems to observe her, like its security cameras. Linda blends work with moments of leisure, creating an unsettling tension. Gradually, she awakens hidden desires in each family member, exposing their weaknesses and destroying the stagnant equilibrium they once shared.

In a tight-knit Dominican American community in The Bronx, Rico hustles through the summer selling bootleg “nutcracker” cocktails and chasing girls without a care. But when his girlfriend Destiny starts crashing at his family’s apartment, their messy, complicated young love turns the cramped space into a powder keg. It’s only a matter of time before the party ends and reality hits. Writer-director Joel Alfonso Vargas turns his hometown into the heartbeat of his debut feature, teaming up with street-cast talent to deliver a raw, slice-of-life portrait full of humor, grit, and the chaotic charm of growing up fast in a city that waits for no one.

Set in Panama City, this delicate drama follows two lonely souls who form an unexpected bond. Ana María, a Colombian immigrant working as a caregiver, harbors a secret, while Mercedes (Paulina García, GLORIA), a high-class woman, faces the slow onset of dementia that erases her identity. As their lives intertwine, they begin a journey of mutual discovery, delving into the complexities of mother-daughter relationships. Together, they navigate caregiving’s challenges and the deep need for connection, learning to survive and care for one another amid personal struggles.

As Peru spirals into political unrest in 1992, Lucía and Aurora prepare to leave for a better life in the U.S. with their mother. But to go, they need their estranged father, Carlos, to sign consent papers. What begins as a bureaucratic necessity becomes a reckoning, as the sisters confront the charm and contradictions of a man they hardly know. Over one final summer in Lima, childhood innocence slips away and buried truths surface. As Carlos struggles to reclaim a place in their hearts, each family member must face what this departure truly means—letting go of illusions, rewriting family history, and embracing the pain of saying goodbye.

In the Bolivian capital of La Paz, Martín is a teenage shoeshine boy and orphan with few friends or resources. His best client, Mr. Novoa, is a lonely tailor whose only companion is Astor, a beautiful German Shepherd he treats like a son. Out of desperation, Martín steals Astor—but as he and Mr. Novoa spend more time together, an unexpected bond begins to grow between them.

When a young Mexican politician loses his presidential bid, he retreats with his wife to their countryside estate. There, their lust for power festers, and they reinvent themselves as monarchs; ruling over their employees with cruelty, delusion, and decadence

Born in the fields of Pacoima and raised on dreams, Ritchie Valens rises from a young Chicano farmworker to a rock 'n' roll pioneer, the first to bring a Spanish-language song to mainstream American audiences. But as his star rises, tensions with his older brother Bob intensify, and a recurring nightmare of a plane crash looms over his first national tour. Luis Valdez's love letter to Chicano resilience, culture, and the cost of the American dream. Screening in celebration of American Pachuco, our Opening Night documentary portrait of the legendary Luis Valdez.

Rafaela, a young nun in a precarious congregation, is haunted by a recurring dream. When she is sent to a nearby town in search of the new archbishop, she encounters people whose struggles with faith, wealth, and purpose mirror her own. Each meeting pulls her closer to — or further from — her path. A quiet, spiritual journey through a broken world in search of something sacred.

Adrián works far from home, mediating between the company that employs him and the workers who trust him. He believes he can balance both worlds — until a workplace accident uncovers the quiet brutality beneath the surface. Adrián must decide where his loyalty truly lies. Featuring CLAIFF alum Alejandra Herrera.

Azucena, a woman in her thirties, approaches Julio, a teenage boy living in a group home, for reasons he doesn’t understand. As they spend time together, an uneasy closeness grows, changing the shape of a bond neither expected to find.

It's hot, and the public hospital is the worst place to spend the afternoon. But El Ciego has a terrible headache, and it's been going on for a while. Discharged from the police force, he lives off his sister's charity. His friend Román offers him a way out: work for Cesar. With no time for doctors anymore, he spends his days in the neighborhoods of Buenos Aires taking care of his new boss's business. But this afternoon, his work ends up being a real headache.

In the heart of Argentine Patagonia, Emma and her teenage granddaughter Alicia share a life built around dance — a bond as beautiful as it is controlling. The sudden arrival of Barbara, Alicia's mother, from a psychiatric facility disrupts their quiet world. As tensions, desires, and secrets surface among three generations of women, the film becomes a fairy tale of sorts — a reflection on motherhood, happiness, and the space between desire and art.

From the jungles of Guatemala to the borderlands of the US Southwest, this year's Narrative Shorts Competition gathers fiction filmmakers who prove that the short form is anything but small. These are complete worlds, told with intention and precision: love, loss, resistance, and the everyday courage of ordinary people.

This year's Hecho en Tejas Competition celebrates Texas filmmakers capturing lives rarely seen on screen. Intimate, urgent, and rooted in real communities, these films ask what it means to survive, remember, and resist. The films in this showcase are eligible for both an Audience Award and a Jury Award, presented in partnership with the Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI). Meet the directors, cast your vote, and stay for the party!