Following the world premiere of Memories of a Penitent Heart at the Tribeca Film Festival, we sat down with director Cecilia Aldarondo to talk about her highly personal documentary. In the film, she takes the viewer on a journey to meet Miguel, her uncle who died when she was just a young girl at the height of the AIDs crisis.

In the third episode of our “Short Cuts” video series, Aldarondo opens up about how emotionally tough it was to uncover family secrets and confront her own mother with information she’s avoided thinking about for decades.

Hit play on the video above to watch Aldarondo explain the process behind creating her intimate and moving feature film debut.

We partnered with the Tribeca Film Festival to give you a behind-the-scenes look at the Latino films at this year’s fest. Follow our coverage on remezcla.com and tribecafilm.com.