Latino filmmakers use storytelling to preserve culture, challenge narratives and build community

AUSTIN (KXAN) – While growing up in San Antonio, Miguel Alvarez said family and identity were central to his experience in a predominantly Latino city. He never thought he would one day be able to carry those themes in his storytelling as a filmmaker.

As a Latino filmmaker, Alvarez makes his films stand out by including themes of family, identity and memories in an ever-changing world. He said his artistic decisions have a lot to do with not seeing role models in the industry who looked like him, who were making movies and telling stories.

“I was just this 12-year-old running around San Antonio, and I thought movies were made out in Hollywood, or in the big cities,” Alvarez said. 

As Hispanic Heritage Month is in full swing, KXAN aims to highlight filmmakers in the Austin area from a Latino perspective and how they incorporate their culture into their work.

Exploring themes that are universal

Alvarez said he didn’t pick up a camera until he was 26 years old. 

“Up until then, I had never even thought about making movies or telling stories. A lot of that had to do with not seeing people like, or not seeing stories that I felt that I could connect to on TV, or at the movies. So, I didn’t think that I was important enough to tell those stories.”

Alvarez said he makes films in many genres – like futuristic thrillers, science fiction drama, and Christmas horror comedy.

He said he worked on a short film, called “Piojo,” at Troublemaker Studios back in April. Troublemaker Studios was founded by director Robert Rodriguez and is located in east Austin.

Alvarez said he received grant funding for the film from the Austin Film Society, or AFS, a nonprofit organization focused on bringing “life-changing opportunities for filmmakers,” according to the AFS website.

Alvarez said the film wound up becoming a student effort, with 95% of the crew and all positions on the set consisting of student crews.

“I wanted to give students the feel of being on a professional set at Troublemaker,” he said.

Alvarez said they shot the film for three days at the studio, and he said the students had a blast doing it.

The film is about a father, who in the near future, steals some medication for his sick son and then has to endure new technology when he’s caught by the authorities. The film is expected to be finished by the end of this year, Alvarez said.

“I think the thing is that what makes, maybe not just my films unique, but I think Latino films unique, is that because we’re exploring themes that are universal, it gives us the opportunity to place them in a wide variety of different genres, which then makes them appealing to, you know, a universal audience,” he said.

Filmmaker Iliana Sosa is taking a different approach. She directs documentary films to address the importance of representation in Latino communities in Texas.

Sosa is also a past grant recipient from AFS.

Sosa uses her filmmaking skills to discuss navigating two cultures in the documentary trilogy “God Save Texas: La Frontera,” which is currently streaming on HBO Max.

‘Filmmaking is personal and deeply intimate’

Trailer for the “God Save Texas: La Frontera” documentary. (Courtesy: Iliana Sosa)

The “God Save Texas” documentary trilogy focuses on three directors, including Sosa, to provide their “unique and personal perspectives on their hometowns, creating contemporary portraits of a state that still echoes our nation’s past and warns of its possible future,” according to HBO Max.

Sosa grew up in El Paso and said she considers herself a “fronteriza,” which translates to someone who grows up near the border and embraces two cultures. Sosa talks about the two cultures and what it’s like to be in between both in “God Save Texas.”

“As Sosa traces the fluctuating nature of America’s relationship to migrants from south of the border, she invokes the concept of Nepantla, a Nahuatl word for a state of ‘in-between-ness,’ suggesting a frontier land with blurred edges where first-generation immigrant children straddle two cultures, navigating a complex sense of identity and belonging,” the synopsis about Sosa’s documentary said.

Sosa’s documentary is the third in the trilogy, and she said the episode takes the approach of what it’s like to be on the border, rather than what makes the border, the border.

“What is it like to grow up there? This in-between identity. How does it define you? How does it continue to shape your everyday life?” Sosa said when she spoke with KXAN.

Sosa, who is also an assistant professor with UT in the Radio, Television and Film department, said her work is personal when it comes to filmmaking.

“In one form or another, all of my filmmaking is personal and deeply intimate. I’m interested in border issues, but also just general issues that affect Latine communities and representation,” she said.

Latine is a gender-neutral term used when referring to Latin American people. It serves as an alternative to the gendered terms Latino and Latina.

Sosa’s other documentary, “What We Leave Behind,” shows her late grandfather, Julian Moreno, building a house in northern Mexico. The film details the journey of building the house, but also shows how their family is “being stratified between two different countries,” Sosa said.

“After a lifetime of bus rides to the U.S. to visit his children, Julian quietly started building a house in rural Mexico. In filming his work, his granddaughter [Sosa] crafts a personal and poetic love letter to him and his homeland,” a synopsis for “What We Leave Behind” said.

The documentary premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW) in 2022 and streamed on Netflix, Sosa said. The documentary won two Jury Awards at SXSW, which is part of the SXSW Film and TV Awards Program.

Trailer for “What We Leave Behind” (Courtesy: Iliana Sosa)

“[The documentary] took me seven years to make, and my grandfather – the late Julian Moreno – his last project before he passed was to build a house in northern Mexico,” she said.

“Basically, the film details the journey of him building this house, but also our family being stratified between two different countries, and it taking the approach of it being this typical American family. Sure, it’s about immigration, but it’s also about how families are separated by, you know, these oftentimes very invisible borders and also tangible ones,” she said.

While this type of storytelling can affect Latine communities, Sosa said the story is universal.

“A lot of people, after the screenings, would come up to me that weren’t Latine. They could be working-class people from the Midwest who were like, ranchers, are like, ‘I loved your grandfather,’” Sosa said. “I think the universality of that story is just the stratification of how certain outside pressures put on a family, right? That ultimately ends up dividing them. And for him, he built this house, but like, for who? No one actually lives in it now.”

While Sosa has taken a more personal and intimate perspective on the Latine community, filmmaker Chelsea Hernandez focuses on how immigrant construction workers in Texas face exploitation.

Preserving history, stories through film

Hernandez, also a past AFS grant recipient, said she first found the idea to make her documentary, “Building the American Dream,” while working on an art documentary series at Austin PBS — her first full-time job.

She said the idea came to her after she saw immigrant construction workers face exploitation.

“That was a moment where I realized my work as a documentary filmmaker is also as a history preservationist, like I am preserving our history, our stories, through documentary film, and so now that’s kind of my main purpose in making film, is making sure that these stories are told from our communities,” Hernandez said.

She said she wants to continue making these stories so that people know who and what Latinos are going through.

“We’re in the process of being erased, and so that’s something that I really want to stop,” Hernandez added.

“Building the American Dream” talks about the deadly conditions construction workers face and how families seek justice in an industry rife with exploitation, according to the documentary website.

“Across Texas, an unstoppable construction boom drives urban sprawl and luxury high-rises. It’s a dirty secret: abuse of immigrant labor. BUILDING THE AMERICAN DREAM captures a turning point as a movement forms to fight widespread construction industry injustices. Grieving their son, a Mexican family campaigns for a life-and-death safety ordinance,” a synopsis for the documentary said.

While Hernandez noted the documentary was filmed nearly 10 years ago, she felt it was worth showcasing on Labor Day. AFS hosted a screening of the documentary at AFS Cinema.

“I think it was really important for me to share this film on Labor Day in Texas,” she said. “It’s a story about Texas workers, and it also speaks to what obstacles these workers face — including heat, and including wage theft. Being able to show it on Labor Day, which is kind of considered the summer still for us, you know, it’s really hot. I think people can really feel, you know, what workers are facing when they watch this film as they’re coming in from, you know, the 100-degree weather into a nice, cool theater.”

Hernandez said it meant a lot to her to be able to show a screening of the documentary in the Austin community.

“I hadn’t watched [the documentary] for a couple of years, and to watch it again today, it hit in different ways. I could feel that with the audience, and we were kind of all talking about that afterwards. So, it was really painful to be able to screen that on Labor Day,” she said.

For Hernandez, she said her perspective as a Latina stands out in every step of the process — down to who she has on her crew, from who she collaborates with and to how she seeks out and writes the stories.

“It’s a very important part of my filmmaking identity, because it is my identity. And knowing that we’re very underrepresented in the filmmaking industry, it’s really important for me to show up and bring my full self to the table in the entire process of making a film and the stories,” Hernandez said.

‘How you see the world’

While Alvarez continues telling stories through film, he said being a teacher is also important. There are many stories to be told, and he said he wants students to know that their stories matter.

“I think a lot of what young filmmakers wrestle with is thinking that their stories don’t matter, or that they don’t have a story to tell,” he said. “It’s really about what’s inside you and what you want to say.”

As for Sosa, she said, for anyone starting out as a filmmaker, it is important to document how you see the world.

“Because that’s what makes you an interesting filmmaker, is your perspective and leaning into that and not shying away from that,” she said.

Hernandez echoed a similar sentiment, saying everyone who wants to be a filmmaker has an important voice to share, as well as different perspectives. She added it’s also important to seek out collaborators.

“Find those collaborators that you work well with, and share similar values, and go out there and just make stuff. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my own career — there’s been a lot of rejections — but there’s been a lot of successes,” Hernandez said.

As for Alvarez, he said filmmaking students should know their storytelling is valid.

“Whatever you want to say to the world is valid, and you should make it. You should make a story. You should tell a story. You should make something that you feel really passionate about, that is unique to you, and something that the world you know can respond to,” he said.

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