Boca Chica
Trailer
Synopsis
Desi, a twelve-year-old Dominican, has musical aspirations and performs with a local girls' choir, but her ambitions are much bigger. Desi longs to one day leave her coastal community of Boca Chica behind and achieve fame and recognition as a singer. She keeps this longing a secret from her family, specifically the women in her life who raised her. Her occasional confidant is her older brother, Fran, who lives a facade of his own in New York City as a struggling musician timidly working as a food delivery boy. When news arrives that the brothers' cousin, Elvis, is coming to Boca Chica to marry his rich, older American fiancée, past tensions and latent traumas in his family are revealed. Meanwhile, a restless Desi meets a group of Dominican teenagers (also aspiring singers and rappers) who spark her artistic pursuit.
Film sheet
Desi, a twelve-year-old Dominican, has musical aspirations and performs with a local girls' choir, but her ambitions are much bigger. Desi longs to one day leave her coastal community of Boca Chica behind and achieve fame and recognition as a singer. She keeps this longing a secret from her family, specifically the women in her life who raised her. Her occasional confidant is her older brother, Fran, who lives a facade of his own in New York City as a struggling musician timidly working as a food delivery boy. When news arrives that the brothers' cousin, Elvis, is coming to Boca Chica to marry his rich, older American fiancée, past tensions and latent traumas in his family are revealed. Meanwhile, a restless Desi meets a group of Dominican teenagers (also aspiring singers and rappers) who spark her artistic pursuit.
LANGUAGES): Spanish
SUBTITLE: English
COUNTRY(S): Dominican Republic
PREMIER TYPE: Latinamerican Premiere
SECTION: First Fiction Opera “Jimmy Sierra”
DIRECTOR(S): Gabriella A. Moses
PRODUCER(S): Sterlyn Ramirez
SCREENWRITER(S): Marité Ugás, Mariana Rondón
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Micaela Cajahuaringa
EDITOR: Cecilia Delgado
MUSIC: Cresencio ‘The Prodigy’ García
CONTACT: Selene Films
DISTRIBUTION: Scarlet Camilo, Lia Chapman, Jean Cruz, Richarson Díaz, Cindy Lou Howard, Juan Hughes, Eliseo Antonio Paredes, Sterlyn Ramírez, Xiomara Rodriguez, Pedro Salamanca
Director's Statement
Sexist culture has long left young women vulnerable to abuse and sex tourism is a branch of tourism, therefore exposing young women, even more, to the commodification of their bodies and legislation plays a role in that, allowing more insidious things like trafficking to occur. Trafficking is a global problem that occurs in much more privileged countries like the United States. We need to talk about that. We need to protect our young women. Women and children are among the most vulnerable members of our societies, so it is no surprise that they constantly fight to survive; That is why women can become complicit in their own repression. We see this apply to women in positions of power who struggle to reach out and create space for other women out of fear that it will be to their own detriment. We know this is not true; However, the narrative lives on, so it is even more true when it comes to women who hold even their own daughters to outdated standards and expectations.
Festivals and awards
Sexist culture has long left young women vulnerable to abuse and sex tourism is a branch of tourism, therefore exposing young women, even more, to the commodification of their bodies and legislation plays a role in that, allowing more insidious things like trafficking to occur. Trafficking is a global problem that occurs in much more privileged countries like the United States. We need to talk about that. We need to protect our young women. Women and children are among the most vulnerable members of our societies, so it is no surprise that they constantly fight to survive; That is why women can become complicit in their own repression. We see this apply to women in positions of power who struggle to reach out and create space for other women out of fear that it will be to their own detriment. We know this is not true; However, the narrative lives on, so it is even more true when it comes to women who hold even their own daughters to outdated standards and expectations.
Nominated for Best International Fiction Feature Film at the Tribeca Film Festival, 2023. Winner of the Nora Ephron, Gabriella A. Moses Award Tribeca Film Festival, 2023. Nominated for Best Director
Gabriella A. Moses
Gabriella A. Moses is an award-winning director, writer, and production designer based in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Her latest short film MORE THAN A SUBJECT was commissioned by the Munchmuseet in Oslo, Norway. His award-winning thesis film, Las Mañanitas, has been featured at numerous international film festivals, winning Best Casting, Production Design and Score at New York University's First Run Film Festival and Best Film at the Katra Film Fest Series . Her production design work has been featured at major film festivals around the world, including Sundance, Toronto, Tribeca, and SXSW. Her clients include VOGUE, Estée Lauder, Instagram, Google, Casper, Target, Walmart, Keystone, Bombas and Capsule Pharmacy, to name a few. Gabriella was selected by the New York Hispanic Coalition as one of their 2015 Rising Latina Stars. She also served as shadow director for ABC Diversity Showcase 2015. Gabriella is currently developing her first feature film as a director, LECHE, which has received support from the 2016 Sundance Institute Creative Production Lab, the 2017 NYWIFT “From Script to Pre-Production” Workshop, the 2018 Sundance Screenwriting Intensive, the 2018 Tribeca Film Institute All-Access Lab, and the Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund Program. She was a TFI x Chanel Through Her Lens Fellow. Most recently, in 2021, she was selected for the inaugural W Scripted Cannes Screenplay List, LALIFF and Netflix Inclusion Fellowship, and The Black List Screenwriter's Lab. In winter 2021, she completed principal photography on her first feature BOCA CHICA with Selene Films in the Dominican Republic. . Principal photography on LECHE, her second feature film and debut as a writer, is scheduled for summer 2022. She believes in sharing stories with underrepresented protagonists that test the viewer's perceptions of identity and imagination.
Director's Filmography
Short:
Boca Chica (2023), Without Roots (2022)
Milk (2017)
Sticky Fingers (2016)
The Mornings (2012)