Mickey, the new feature documentary by multi-award-winning trans Mexican filmmaker Dano García, will have its world premiere in the Global section at the 2026 SXSW Film Festival, running March 12–18, in Austin, Texas. The film marks García’s return to SXSW, where their debut feature Kings of Nowherewon the Global Audience Award.
Filmed over ten years, the documentary centers on Mickey Cundapí (she/her), known artistically as Mis$ Mickey, a trans multidisciplinary artist who, alongside García, uses play and performance to re-signify the past and inhabit the present. Over the past decade, Mickey has navigated her transition within the conservative context of Mazatlán—a city known for its vibrant carnival traditions yet marked by persistent homophobia and transphobia.
Mickey and García first met at age 14 as students at the same Catholic school. Even then, Mickey's makeup and performances during mass scandalized priests. In a deeply collaborative process, the two revisited archival material from their childhood friendship, reconstructing a shared journey of gender transition and resilience while creating space for broader queer community support through the film itself.
Drawing from youthful footage, artistic reenactments, and intimate encounters, Mickey moves between tenderness and rage, transforming memory into an act of liberation. The film approaches the past not as fixed, but as fluid—a space for reimagining selfhood beyond punishment or shame.
With Mickey, García delivers a formally daring and emotionally intimate work shaped by sustained collaboration. Challenging cinematic conventions and expanding the language of trans representation, the film asserts trans cinema as both aesthetic innovation and political transformation.
