Celebrating Diverse Women Filmmakers: 5th Annual Femme Frontera Filmmaker Showcase

March 17, 2021 - San Antonio

The 5th Annual Femme Frontera Filmmaker Showcase features selections by filmmakers Celina Galacia, Amada Torruella, Ebony Bailey, Karolina Esqueda, Morningstar Angeline, and Xochitl Rodriguez. Courtesy Images.

By: Valeria Torrealba - Senior Reporter, San Antonio Sentinel

The Esperanza Peace and Justice Center as well as the Latino Collection and Resource Center at the San Antonio Public Library (Central Library) will present the 5th Annual Femme Frontera Filmmaker Showcase on March 19 at 7 p.m. The event will be followed by a community discussion moderated by the Latino Collection and Resource Center. Those who wish to attend the free virtual event may RSVP here.

Founded in 2016, the Femme Frontera Filmmaker Showcase began as a celebration of films made by women filmmakers from the U.S.-Mexico border region. The question and answer session will include Xochitl Rodriguez, Jackie Iyari Barragan and Morningstar Angeline. 

“This is the fifth year of Femme Frontera. [Showcases] usually premiere in November and then we take it on tour the next year,” Jackie Iyari Barragan, the Femme Frontera Filmmaker Showcase tour coordinator, said. 

In previous years, the event would premiere at Alamo Drafthouse, bringing together an audience in person to experience the themes that those year’s artists brought together. However, due to COVID-19 protocols and safety, the showcase had to adapt to moving online.

“After a couple of years, we’ve been recognized. We received $80,000 grants from the Ford Foundation,” Barragan said. “And it created a few jobs and, which is why I was able to get on the team and and become a part of the staff. So it's evolved. Now we have more options for actually more funding to provide as grants to filmmakers who are trying to work on their projects.”

The Ford Foundation grant allowed for funds to be allocated to filmmakers, helping them develop their films and screenwriting. The organization offers educational workshops catered to all ages with the help of the grant as well. 

“This year we have a grant for screenwriting and a grant to help develop to develop their actual film, and we're focusing on the border right now,” Barragan said.  “We're focusing on providing these grants to women in El Paso, Juárez and Las Cruces.”

The annual film showcase event has expanded to include powerful short films from around the world, many whose stories challenge perceptions about women, border communities, immigrants, people of color, the LBGTQ+ community and other underrepresented communities. 

“They’re all female-identifying filmmakers, non-binary filmmakers, and they’re short films with a variety of different concepts,” Barragan said. “Afterwards, we’ll do a [question and answer] with a few of the filmmakers.” 

Barragan, one of the filmmakers, will be showcasing her film Josie, providing insight into the life story of her own mother — a woman who sought to be an undefeated martial arts expert, fueled by the spite of her traumatic past and a failed justice system. With a story beginning in Juárez, Mexico, the daughter narrates her mother’s story, detailing the events that led her life for so many years. 

“It’s a short documentary about my mother, who was born in Juárez and migrated into the United States. She ends up going through a few traumatic experiences, and as a way to cope she started training in martial arts in Ciudad Juárez,” Barragan said. 

The film follows Barragan’s mother’s progress through learning hapkido, a Korean martial art. Undefeated and determined, she spent her years working through her trauma and preparing to face the man who had inflicted the deep wounds upon her.

“She kind of used this trauma to propel her into the martial arts world, she was really seeking some kind of justice — the justice system failed her, like many cases,” Barragan said. “She wanted to take it into her own hands, and had a plan to get back to this person. She went from belt to belt and started competing in competitions and never ended up losing a fight. When she finally felt prepared and ready to seek her justice, she ends up finding out that he’s no longer alive. She felt a little burned because she literally wanted to fight this guy, and she still had this anger, she used it towards her competition. She retired undefeated.”

Femme Frontera’s mission has been to empower women filmmakers through the tumultuous waters of an industry in which women are not often seen. As writers, directors, filmmakers and more, each of the women showcased provide their creativity to the event, further amplifying their voices and making a path for those who wish to step in their shoes next, ultimately continuing to carve a path for women in the film industry.

“After a couple of years, we’ve been recognized. We received $80,000 grants from the Ford Foundation,” Barragan said. “And it created a few jobs and, which is why I was able to get on the team and and become a part of the staff. So it's evolved. Now we have more options for actually more funding to provide as grants to filmmakers who are trying to work on their projects.” - Jackie Iyari Barragan

“We had to come together and create a venue of resources and a support group for female identifying filmmakers because, just like many industries, the film industry is just dominated by by men,” Barragan said. “And, and so it's just been really nice because it's a good way to start as a filmmaker, and the whole mission is just to share voices that we heard me, you know, rarely hear in the media.”

The 5th Annual Femme Frontera Filmmaker Showcase also features six other selections by filmmakers Morningstar Angeline, Ebony Bailey, Karolina Esqueda, Celina Galacia, Xochitl Rodriguez, and Amada Torruella. More information can be found at The Esperanza Center’s website, www.esperanzacenter.org.

Details about each featured film can be found below:

• Jamaica y Tamarindo / By Ebony Bailey 

  • The Jamaica flower in Tamarind are iconic ingredients in Mexico, but their story comes from a place much further away. In Jamaica y Tamarindo: Afro Tradition in the Heart of Mexico, we meet five people to explore African heritage in Mexico City, and identity that goes beyond the color of one’s skin.

• Grown Without Water / By Xochitl Rodriguez 

  • As the sun breaks over a purple mountain, a woman wakes from a dream in the middle of the West Texas  desert, just outside of El Paso. She’s wrapped in soft sheets, in the bed the women who came before her slept in. There, in the middle of the dirt, she dreamed she was drowning. 

• Josie / By Jackie Barragan

  • Josie is a true account of a woman living on the U.S./Mexico border and her quest to find retribution while becoming an undefeated martial artist. The film is narrated by her own daughter adding a more intimate perspective into her mother’s story.

• Los Amuletos Migran / By Amada Torruella 

  • In July 1980, nineteen-year-old Dora Rodríguez fled her native El Salvador and crossed the U.S./Mexico border. In Los Amuletos Migran, we accompany Dora while she looks through migrants’ personal  belongings, which were seized and discarded by Ajo Border Patrol.

• Oda a los Frijoles / By Karolina Esqueda 

  • A literary and visual rendition to beans, this experimental short film merges a cooking recipe with archival footage of immigrants and fieldworkers. 

• Yá’át’ééh Abíní (Good Morning) / By Morningstar Angeline 

  • Haunted by her father’s death from a global virus that has ravaged her native Navajo nation and now under constant surveillance from an unknown military, Crystal must learn to embrace her visions,  memories, and dreams, in order to both survive and re-discover what may be left of the world. 

• Cenicero De Dios / By Celina Galacia 

  • Lorena and her mother live in Ciudad Juárez, where Lorena awaits her father’s return, while her mother is  obsessed with knowing something about him. In Lorena’s memory there remains a monument, a history and hope.

Valeria Torrealba is an opinions columnist and public relations assistant at the University Star, a student publication of Texas State University. Email her at reporter@sasentinel.com