What if you came home one day and found yourself having been replaced by a whiter version of yourself? Moreover, what if the reason was that you were flagged as “too Latino”? This is the premise of the Eddie Mujica-written short film Dreamer. Darius de la Cruz plays a man who senses something’s amiss once he arrives at his suburban home. His wife is unresponsive and a man wearing exactly the same outfit as him (played by Mujica) claims to be his replacement. And, from what he gathers, all evidence of his existence around the house has been scrubbed and replaced as well.
Channeling Black Mirror to tell a story about white Latinos, the short film takes the label “DREAMers” quite literally. Directed by Chris Sturgeon Dreamer is a provocative sci-fi take on contemporary Latinidad in the United States. It was first inspired by Mujica’s own experiences as a light-skinned Latino in Hollywood as well as on the current conversations about immigration that have dominated the conversation in the last few years. The vision of the near-future it offers is both creepy and scarily familiar. Take a look below, but be warned, it’s eerie af.