For the past 25 years, the Cine Las Americas International Film Festival has brought work by Latinx, Indigenous, and filmmakers based in the Americas to Austin screens. Included in this year’s programming was the 7th Annual Femme Frontera Filmmakers Showcase.
The showcase, which started in 2016, highlights short films made by female or nonbinary filmmakers from around the world and tours them at various film festivals. This year’s selection covered a range of subjects, from documentaries on ghost towns to a young romance hindered by the border.
Here are a few standouts that caught this writer’s attention:
Homesick
D: Valeria ContrerasIn this lovely short, two lovers are (literally) kept apart by the border itself. Cesar (Alan Borunda) and Aurora (Gabriela Torres) share a phone call, talking through what their future could look like and remembering their short time together fondly. There’s also a great needle drop towards the end, which emphasizes the star-crossed romance well. Sweet, grounded, and warm, “Homesick” captures the pain and love that can come from bonds forged across borders.
Seeds
D: Morningstar Angeline, Ajuawak KapahesitCentered around two Native sisters, Loretta (Maeve Garay) and Raven (Shawnee Pourier), who’ve lost their parents, “Seeds” is a funny yet poignant portrait. Loretta picks up a camera, and the two recreate and reflect on their late parents’ relationship. We get to see the world through Loretta’s over-the-shoulder VHS camera through her recreations and get a tactile sense of time and place. It’s a playful rumination on sisterhood and loss that makes an impression with its brief runtime.
Shipping Them
D: Ryan RoxLux (Ryan Rox) spends much of their time pining after the life of their next door neighbor who seems to have it all. “Shipping Them” uses Lux’s fantasies about what they could have to reflect on the nonbinary experience, and the suffocating pressures of cisnormative gender roles. It’s also funny and irreverent, touching on the ways pop culture influenced Lux’s journey and referencing everything from the Quentin Tarantino universe to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Blue Veil
D: Shireen AlihajiThis experimental short film follows Amina, a Muslim teenager navigating the loss of her mother and after the events of 9/11. Using the aesthetics of surveillance footage, home movies, and excellent sound design, we get a glimpse into Amina’s life. Here, music is more than background noise: it’s used to replicate memories of a lost loved one. It’s a haunting, dreamy slice of life short that lets us spend time in Amina’s headspace as a high schooler in 2001.
La Bi-Vencia
D: Mariana Gongora-Reyes, Analaura CardenasA short documentary about the history and legacy of a ghost town on the U.S.-Mexico border, “La Bi-Vencia” uses traditional documentary techniques and mixed media to charming effect. The interviews with former and current residents, as well as the lonely, wide-open space of the town help ground us in the town, no matter the time. Overall, it’s an endearing, intriguing look at one border town that’s all but forgotten yet always present in the minds and hearts of those who’ve lived there.
The 7th Annual Femme Frontera Filmmakers Showcase screened as part of the 2023 Cine Las Americas International Film Festival. cinelasamericas.org.
This article appears in June 23 • 2023.