On Criterion, I watched Hummingbirds, a 2023 documentary directed by Silvia Del Carmen Castaños and Estefanía “Beba” Contreras (with co-directors in Jillian Schlesinger and Miguel Drake-McLaughlin), documenting themselves in their summer together as friends, in their fleeting youth as they grow out of being teenagers and become young women.
They live in Laredo, Texas, bordering Mexico, and Beba is an undocumented immigrant, and she talks about having been deported with her mother when she was in third grade, and being like “I had perfect attendance!”, but making it back to the U.S., and trying to gain residency and citizenship. They also talk about not fitting in as Mexican women in the U.S., but not being seen as “really” Mexican in Mexico.
They use their summer for creative self-expression as artists, like playing music, filming dancers and dancing themselves, and working as activists to advocate for abortion (like changing a yard sign from Pray to End Abortion to Pray 4 Legal Abortion) and immigration rights, calling out injustices of the U.S. Border Patrol.
They talk about how hard their moms worked, and how they want their moms to be able to relax and enjoy their lives, while also saying how they grew up quickly as children with experiencing food insecurity, taking care of their younger siblings, and the challenges with immigration and their citizenship statuses.
I really liked this movie. It’s short, at just 77 minutes long, and has an artsy look with the girls dancing at the magic hour sunset and being illuminated by it, and being punks and activists and switching easily between English and Spanish and straddling both U.S. and Mexican cultures. It’s a coming of age movie that combines their cultural identities with their activism, and was really interesting to watch.
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