This movie will be played on:
All screenings will take place at
COLLEGE OF THE DESERT | POLLOCK THEATER
43500 Monterey Ave, Palm Desert, CA
Logline:
Ofelia, a grief-stricken woman seeks out the soul of her daughter on the anniversary of her death. When her lover confronts with the truth about her past, she must choose between living a life of denial or moving on and letting go.
Synopsis:
Ofelia is a ghost of her formal self woman, a woman haunted by her own past, incapable of letting go of the memories of her dead daughter, Mia. She spends every day tormented by the events that led up to Mia’s drowning, with each passing day growing more and more mad. Every year on the anniversary of her daughter’s drowning, she returns to the lake to summon spirits and bring back a child from the dead, in hopes to once again see Mia. When her lover, Merced, discovers that Ofelia has lost touch with reality she forces her to choose between letting go of the past or go on living in denial.
Award winning Latinx filmmaker Felix Martiz started directing short films while attending California State University of Long Beach. As a student, he won many awards, including the prestigious Cal Arts Best Student Film Rosebud Award for “ La Paz.” After graduating, he made his directorial feature film debut with “Santiago,” which screened at film festivals worldwide. Overall, his production company Un Anima Within Productions films’ have screened at more than thirty film festivals and have won various awards. As well as being an accomplished director, Felix has also worked as a script consultant and editor for various micro-budget productions. In 2015, Felix directed “400 Miles” for Mano-a-Mano Productions. The film was a festival darling that screened in over twenty festivals (including OutFest Fusion). In 2016, he received his Masters in Film Production from Mount St Mary’s University, Los Angeles. He wrote, produced and directed two thesis films “Mia” and “Kiko.” “Mia” is currently in the festival circuit and has begun to garnish awards, including Best Short Film at BIFF 2017. Felix continues to write and direct films that showcase his unique Latinx perspective. His films are diverse and feature people of color and are either bilingual or in his native language of Spanish. He is currently in Post-Production with “Kiko,” a short film about deportation that he wants to develop into a television series.
My name is Felix Martiz and I am the Writer/Director of the short film ‘Mia’. As a Latino filmmaker, I produce projects that consist of Latin stories as well as a diverse Latin cast. The themes I explore deal with identity and/or letting go and ‘Mia’ is no different. My latest film is a retelling of an old folklore tale La Llorona (The Weeping Woman), in which a desperate woman sacrifices her children and then commits suicide, in order to escape her abusive marriage. In the afterlife she is cursed to haunt the river looking for her child. The basis of this folklore presented a unique opportunity for me as a storyteller to bypass any of the typical horror tropes or gore usually affiliated with this tale. My goal was to make something different and unique; I didn’t want my Llorona to be a haunting ghost, I wanted her to be a woman haunted by her own past and driven mad by her regrets. This woman’s curse is not death, but life itself. Her torment is the ability to bring back children from the dead, except her own. Exploring who this woman once was and has become brings humanity to this suffering mother.
