Latinas are still making moves in Hollywood.
In the independent feature film “Valentina,” a series of bureaucratic mishaps dogs a young woman as she tries to complete a simple to-do list at the El Paso-Juarez border. But the film, which earned director Tatti Ribeiro the Someone to Watch Award at this year’s Film Independent Spirit Awards, is less interested in the politics of the border than in the people who live there.
The dramedy, shot with a skeleton crew of only 10 people, blends narrative and documentary styles to follow its title character through a day of red tape, cultural identity and survival through laughter. Keyla Monterroso Mejia, the Guatemalan-Mexican American actor known for her work on Apple TV+’s “The Studio” and HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” stars in the title role.
For Ribeiro, who spent years reporting from El Paso as a journalist, the challenge was translating an experience she knew to be rich, funny and human into a cinematic language that could capture what policy conversations often miss.
“My main problem always was that I felt like the work, while it was true and important, was disconnected between my experience making that work and what the work was saying,” Ribeiro tells Variety.
The question on her mind was how to express that experience as rich and funny as possible, while also making it powerful and moving. She cited filmmakers such as Richard Linklater, the mockumentary “Borat” and Chloé Zhao’s best picture winner “Nomadland” as tonal touchstones. Ribeiro said she wanted the film to feel like spending time in West Texas, with a grounded, conversational tone, neither straight drama nor absurd comedy. Nearly 98% of the film is unscripted, with real El Paso residents delivering performances so naturalistic that audiences were stunned to learn they were not professional actors.
Ribeiro was also candid about the pressures facing women and filmmakers of color, invoking a Tina Fey anecdote about comedian Steve Martin’s advice to “kill every time.”
“I feel like that is true for women — you have to ‘kill’ every single time or you won’t get to make another one,” Ribeiro shares. “What women need the space for is to keep going, but without the pressure of ‘killing’ every single time or you’re out. That is debilitating pressure, and it paralyzes people.”
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Actor and multi-hyphenate Jessica Alba and her producing partner, Tracey Nyberg, serve as executive producers through their production company, Lady Metalmark Entertainment. When they launched the company in 2024, Alba says the film’s humanity is what drew her in.
“There’s tenderness, complexity, nuance that we deserve in our stories, characters, that we don’t get,” Alba says. “Oftentimes, there is a narrow one to two dimensions that they allow us to live inside of, and it’s just too much for us to be more than that.”
Alba, who is also raising an aspiring filmmaker daughter, said she felt a personal calling to champion the project. She pointed to the double standard women and Latina creatives face in an industry that demands perfection while offering few opportunities. “We get so few shots, we have to live up to such a level of perfection that is beyond reason,” Alba says. “If we could try and pretend like we’re not being held to that standard, and we can just have fun — they can’t really fuck with us if we had a good time.”
Nyberg said the mission extends beyond a single film.
“If you’re in the club, you get to keep going,” Nyberg says. “But if you’re not, even if you’re successful, people forget, or they write it off as a one-time thing.”
For Monterroso Mejia, whose father is from Guatemala and mother is from Mexico, the role was terrifying and transformative. “I had to say yes, because it was going to make me a better actress,” Monterroso Mejia says of her initial reaction.
The production also became a family affair. Ribeiro involved Monterroso Mejia’s own father and brother in the film. This prospect initially made her nervous. But the family’s natural chemistry proved irresistible on camera. Her father’s dinner-table stories about cartels and his reaction to her character smoking cigarettes became some of the film’s most endearing moments.
Monterroso Mejia also reflected on what her career means in the broader landscape of Latino representation in Hollywood, crediting advocates such as America Ferrera and John Leguizamo for helping pave the way.
“I want to be honest and say that I am literally living, breathing proof that everybody who has worked hard for representation — that is paying off,” Monterroso Mejia says. “Don’t stop, because look, I’m a product of all of your hard work.”
Moreover, she reveals that “Abbott Elementary” creator and star Quinta Brunson recommended her for the role of Petra, the hilarious assistant to Seth Rogen’s studio head Matt, on the Apple TV+ series “The Studio,” noting that without Brunson’s advocacy, she might never have been considered.
“Had she not said anything, had she not brought up my name, I don’t think I would have been considered or even looked at,” Monterroso Mejia reflects.
“Valentina” arrives at a moment when the conversation around Latino representation in film remains urgent. America Ferrera remains the only Latina to have won the Emmy for lead actress in a comedy series. Only three Latina women have won acting Oscars — Rita Moreno for 1961’s “West Side Story,” Ariana DeBose for 2021’s “West Side Story” and Zoe Saldaña for 2024’s “Emilia Pérez.” No Latina has yet won a lead acting Oscar.
But the team behind “Valentina” is less focused on the statistics than on the storytelling. As Ribeiro puts it, the more specific her film became, the more universal it felt. She is now in early preproduction on her next project, another hybrid film in the same vein. So far, “Valentina” has also won two prizes at last year’s Mill Valley Film Festival, taking both the Mind the Gap Creation Prize and the audience award in the ¡Viva el Cine! section.
A special screening of the film at UTA agency, co-hosted by Alba and Elsa Collins, on Tuesday, March 10, at 7 p.m. PT. The event will include a Q&A with Ribeiro, journalist Jacob Soboroff and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, followed by a reception. UTA Independent Film Group, 3 Arts Entertainment and Lady Metalmark Entertainment are presenting the screening.
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