Since it was founded in 2016, Femme Frontera has advocated for the amplification of films made by women from border regions across the globe. Their annual filmmaker showcase, which began as a celebration of films made by women filmmakers from the U.S.-Mexico border region, has since evolved to include a more diverse cross-section. Were it not for COVID-19, the Femme Frontera film collective would be touring the country with its 2019 showcase. Instead, they’ve gone ahead and made it available to stream in its entirety.
Among the short films included in last year’s program are Jessica Mendez Siqueiros’s Pozole, a comedic take on the troubles of a vegan Chicana who’s clearly not measuring up to her family’s expectations. Tinted with the matted golden palette you’re likely to see in a Wes Anderson film, Pozole is exactly the kind of project Femme Frontera has long supported. As director Mendez Siqueiros told Remezcla in 2019, “My goal is to challenge the perceptions of what we are allowed to be, who our audiences are, how we are represented, and what we look like.”
Elsewhere on the program you can find Laura Bustillos Jáquez’s haunting live capturing of Tereso Contreras singing “Te diré” shot in Antiguo Cine Victoria in Juarez as well as Brenda Contreras’s La Lucha Sigue: Marichuy in Mexico City, a brief portrait of María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, the first indigenous woman in Mexico’s history to run for the presidency. Featuring powerful narratives, dreamy sequences and nightmarish landscapes, this year’s program includes experimental, documentary and narrative Latinx shorts made by female-identifying filmmakers, half from the U.S.-Mexico border
Curated by a committed group of female filmmakers intent on uplifting oft-ignored but vital voices in the film industry, the 4th Annual Femme Frontera Filmmaker Showcase is not to be missed. Catch it in full below.
4th Annual Femme Frontera Showcase first premiered on September 21, 2019.
