This film is part of the International Selections. Its only available ONLINE. Click on the button below and choose International BLOCK 1. REMEMBER TO VOTE BY DECEMBER 11TH, 2022.
After her father’s second marriage, Nina struggles to feel part of her new family. On what should have been the perfect birthday celebration for her new sister, Nina’s insecurities and frail relationship with her father take center-stage as Nina confronts a side of her she didn’t know existed.
Cristina Sánchez is a Colombian director and screenwriter. She studied at ESCAC in Barcelona, where she specialized in Film Directing. BEBÉ (BABY), her most recent short film, premiered in Tribeca 2022. She has worked as assistant and second unit director in series for Disney + and Star plus, and has also directed commercial content and music videos.
She is currently writing her first feature, a horror movie.
BABY stems directly from my experience growing up, amidst my parents’ toxic divorce and the new life my father jumped into after that. He fell in love with a beauty queen and gambled on his love for her. With her looks came a world where aesthetic, beauty and perfection were a necessity. A world in which I did not fit in. I was socially awkward, clothes didn’t really fit me and I had a hard time connecting to my own identity as a girl. I was also anxious and bad-tempered. None of that fitted into the etiquettes that come with being a beauty queen.
Not being able to look or act like they wanted me to only made me more self aware. My body became a problem when it never was. Comparisons were inevitable and I shut myself down to avoid dealing with these insecurities. Everyone in my Dad’s new home seemed content and at peace with our new situation. Everyone except me. I felt alienated, unhappy and just wanted to go back with my mom. But I loved my dad, madly. If I tried to break out of my shell and bonded with him and my step-mom, I’d be breaking my mom’s heart. She was betrayed, and felt that way. All she had left was me. But if I kept alienating myself, I’d continue to lose my dad. It was an impossible and overwhelming situation.
My father gave my real step-brother a beautiful dog and was so proud of its pedigree and perfection. The dog fitted right in with the ‘picture-perfect’ family. I couldn’t help feel the dog had more place in our home than I did. Although I never tried to harm it, I did fantasize of it. For many years. The simple idea of harming it gave me such mixed feelings. I could take control over my demons and get rid of them, but at the same time I would actually see my real demons and a dark and obscure place that I didn’t know 11 year old girls had in them. With BABY I wanted to make amends with that time in my life, with that dog I never hurt, with that family I never accepted and with that dark place that for so long brought me shame and pain.
