During the hottest day ever recorded in human history, a fastidious maid’s duties are interrupted when her vagina comes to life. What starts as a simple cry for air turns into an intervention as Valentina’s vagina asks for higher wages and demands better working conditions.
That is the concept of my next short film. It’s called Valentina. I’m inviting you — readers, rarxs, chuecxs, code-switchers, and medio-gringos, those of us who never quite fit in — to help me give a neglected vagina a voice.
My goal as a filmmaker is to combine art-house and traditional cinema, to create foreign movies within the US, and to interweave fiction and fact as a way to experience a new reality. I’ve been told on many occasions that the audience for these types of movies is small and the market inconsequential. I don’t believe them.
It’s up to you, lover of the strange and the truly indie, the verifiably decadent and sometimes gross, to join me in making Valentina and to prove them wrong. Let’s get to talking, and thank you for supporting Latinx film!
Here are five irresistible reasons to donate.
Editor’s Note: Mary Angelica Molina is a regular contributor to Remezcla. She is also a filmmaker and in this post makes an appeal to readers to help fund a short film she plans to direct titled Valentina.
1
Because visibility AND authorship are important!
There are tons of movies and shows with a Latina maid. Most of the people who make them, however, have never cleaned a toilet that’s not their own. It’s different when we tell our own stories because we’re able to take common stereotypes and present them in new and unexpected ways.
2
It’s been vetted and filmmaker approved!
Award-winning filmmaker Paola Mendoza (Entre Nos, Free Like the Birds) is executive producing this short. After reading the script, Paola signed on because “it is a distinct, powerful and hilarious story that needs to be made.” Her role as head consigliere will ensure the production is a success, even when The Man tries to get in our way.
3
For laughs — there are many!
The idea for this film comes from my own life experiences, and a desire to present my agony as comedy. Valentina deftly takes social issues and combines them with absurdist circumstances in order to be critical of a system that contributes to continued inequity.
4
De-shame the vag!
In our communities, perhaps even in our very own homes, the vagina is often a symbol of shame, it’s something you don’t talk about or do so deploringly, and it encourages women to not have knowledge about their own bodies. I want to make this film precisely because it is perceived as “indecent,” and create a space for you and your abuelita to share a laugh and renewed sense of pride.
5
The rewards are awesome!
You want a vagina sock puppet. I know you do. Your significant other will appreciate the extra communication and, ultimately, you will, too. What about a sneak peek at the finished product? Get yourself a link to the film’s blooper reel! Are you out of touch with yourself? Get one of Valentina’s Vagina Compact Mirrors and stay in the know. The rewards are being designed and created in collaboration with media artist Tatiana McCabe.
This project will only be funded if at least $15,000 is pledged by Wednesday, October 19, 2016 at 7:41 a.m. Eastern time.