The ¡Tú Cuentas! Cine Youth Festival is a virtual filmmaking competition that highlights up-and-coming Latine filmmakers, helping them gain access to the industry through awards while promoting their incredible works. Earlier this fall the 2024 Festival took place, and for the second consecutive year, 60% of the top ten finalists were Latina filmmakers! Latinitas Magazine got the opportunity to speak with some of the winners about their experience with ¡Tú Cuentas! And what inspired these inspiring stories.
Victorya Cintra on Grieving The Girl
Brazilian-American filmmaker Victorya Cintra first thought of the story for Grieving the Girl in acting class, “I kind of started acting because I would hear that some of the best directors know how to talk to actors ’cause they themselves have [acted]. So I started taking an acting class in LA…So Grieving the Girl came from, I was sitting in class one day and these two girls had just finished doing a coming-of-age scene. My teacher said, what you have to understand about every coming-of-age story is that it is essentially a funeral story. You are mourning your pathway of life to become this new version of yourself. And basically the whole story just popped into my head where I wanted to do this girl who in a melodramatic way was mourning her girlhood.”
Grieving the Girl follows a teenager on the day she finally gets her period. She invites her best friends to a day of grief as they reminisce and mourn their girlhood. The entire process, from writing to filming to postproduction, took Cintra nearly a year and solidified her identity as a filmmaker: “I know that my subject matter will always be women and girls.” After submitting her short film, Cintra was pleased to discover she’d won the Tú Cuentas Spotlight Award, “I wasn’t expecting it,” Cintra admits excitedly, “So it was really nice to get that recognition.” Participating in the film festival has changed her life for the better, but what really sets the Cine Youth Festival apart is the way they invest in the participants, “I feel like a lot of times if you’re just going the film festival route, it can be really like, okay, you’re there, then it’s over. But they really took the time to interview us, talk about the film, promote the film, and that’s really special. That is not something you get from every experience that you do.”
Like many of the filmmakers I spoke to, Victorya Cintra is already working on her next project, “I just finished wrapping my third short. We’re in postproduction, it’s almost done. It’s also a dark comedy about these women. It’s kind of taking place like five years in the future where birth control is criminalized in the US.” So, make sure to follow her on social media to keep up with her next short!
Anabella Gonzalez on Aqui
Third-place winner Anabella Gonzalez’s interest in film first sparked in college, “I initially was going to go into a science field. It wasn’t until an art class at my old university where I thought, maybe I wanna pursue something within filmmaking of some sort. I just didn’t necessarily know what it was until I went to art school and I took a narrative class and that’s when I realized yeah, this is what I wanna do. I want to create stories. Right now it’s animation, but we’ll see where that goes.” Gonzalez’s award-winning short film Aqui has the quickest runtime out of any of the filmmakers I spoke to, but in the roughly three-minute short Gonzalez evokes an entire lifetime of emotion. Through stop-motion and detailed storytelling, she unravels this narrative of mental health, struggle, and ultimate community.
“This was for a thesis film and I knew I wanted to do something personal to me ’cause I knew if I had to work on it for two years, I wanted it to be something I was passionate about. And that was kind of what drove me to go more into mental health. And then when it came to this story in particular, I was actually watching a dance from So You Think You Can Dance,” Gonzalez laughs, “The idea just popped into my head of these two people, one is chasing the other, trying to pick up what they have left and as they’re unraveling. So it stemmed from that.”
The title Aqui came from a letter her Colombian grandmother had written, “She only speaks Spanish. And it just kind of hit me out of nowhere. It was just like, what if I named it Aqui? It meant a lot to me because aqui means here, which could mean anything. It could be here is where she struggles, here is where the thoughts live. But it could also mean here are the people that support her that are there for her. And then in addition to that, it kind of worked out because aqui sounds like the English phrase “a key” and a key to her getting a little bit of comfort was to reach out and to get that help from her sister.”
Ever the creative, Gonzalez handmade the two main characters, though she did make it a point to specify that her crochet-savvy friends helped with the clothing. Similar to Cintra, Gonzalez wasn’t expecting to place at all, “I was just completely shocked in the way that they actually announced the winners, [it] was so unexpected to me and it was really such a great experience.” She’d heard bout the festival from a friend the year prior and knew she just had to submit, something she encourages other creatives to do as well, “I think it’s just a really great experience, not only to put yourself out there, but to see other Latinos share their stories.”
Anabella Gonzalez is currently looking forward to telling more stories, whether that be as an animator, director, or anything in between, she’s open and excited for what’s to come!
Camila Florez on Power Play
Colombian-American filmmaker Camila Florez took two years to create her short film Power Play, which explores the tricky power dynamics that exist in relationships, especially after the occurrence of a traumatic event. It’s as heavy as it is introspective and Florez’s vulnerability shines through as she confronts her own demons in this diary-entry short, “I was trying to process these things that were happening to me and why I was interested in these more avoidant personalities and why there was this theme of these power dynamics…I just kind of word vomited this first draft after a weekend where a very similar thing had happened to me, but I was also navigating this new relationship with this guy and trying to process that.”
Florez hopes the message young women take away from this short is one of resilience, “I think my message is just that–Yes. As women, we are so worthy and if these things happen or if you have that attachment style or if you go through a traumatic experience it doesn’t devalue you, but really it only could make you stronger and it’s just another part of your story that so many women can relate to.” It’s this unwavering bravery that stood out to the Tú Cuentas judges, landing Florez second place in the competition.
Looking back, Camila admits it was another Camila’s courage that led her to be so open, “Something that really helped me actually was Camila Mendez, the actress…This interview that she did came out I think it was a month before I shot Power Play last year. And it really helped me ’cause it was such a similar experience and I like the fact that we shared the same name and that she was being so vulnerable about something that had happened to her like that. I was like, okay, then I can talk about this and not feel shameful. You know?”
Premiering her short at Tú Cuentas was another turning point for the filmmaker, “I think I would’ve waited a long time to show this, so I like that it was just like, okay, you’re chosen and it’s up. It was just all so quick and then it just frees you up because you’re not putting so much into like what’s next for it.” And what’s next for Florez is another short film, “I’m working on my next short film right now…I’m working with new producers, new dp, new actors, so I’m super excited to continue meeting other creatives. I think I’m just in that space of exploration of just trying new things!”
To follow Camila Florez, or any of the award winners, check out the links below, and be sure to keep up with the ¡Tú Cuentas! Cine Youth Festival to know when the 2025 Festival is open for submissions.
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