Program

In Ciudad Peronia, Guatemala, sisters Lesli and Lupe use art and performance to inspire local youth and heal deep wounds. After 41 girls are killed in a State-run ''Safe Home'' and the government refuses to act, they respond with a community comparsa — towering puppets, fire-breathing stilt walkers, and thundering drums. With brave vulnerability, they expose a system that permits violence against women while confronting their own survival. Their youth movement takes to the streets, reclaiming public space through joy and community care.

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!

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.

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.