Valentina
with director Tattijani Ribeiro in personA series of bureaucratic mishaps plagues Valentina as she tries to tackle a simple to-do list at the El Paso-Juarez border.
Valentina (played by the magnetic Keyla Monterroso Mejia, The Studio) is a young woman caught between small debts and daily pressures in life in a border town. After receiving parking tickets she cannot afford, she sets out to pay them, believing it will be a quick task. Instead, she is pulled into a cycle of errands, conversations and delays that stretch across 48 hours. She goes back and forth between El Paso and Juárez, dealing with family members, part-time jobs and the constant reminder of limited money.
The film follows her through this short time in her life, where she is derailed by a crippling combination of laziness, debt, bureaucracy, partying and imposing members of a close-knit family. By blending real-life news clips and political interviews with a cinema vérité-style approach to capturing Valentina's often-humorous day-to-day circumstances, this wholly original feature film debut rightly earned Tattijani Ribeiro a Film Independent Award for "Someone to Watch."
D: Tattijani Ribeiro, US, 2025, 1h18m
Discussion follows with director Tattijani Ribeiro, moderated by Professor Matthew Garcia
Programmed in collaboration with the Department of Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies
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