Following its successful world premiere at Visions du Réel last April and its Mexican premiere at Ambulante, Niñxs, the debut feature documentary by Mexican trans filmmaker Kani Lapuerta—in collaboration with Karla Bañuelos—will have its much-anticipated U.S. premiere in the Documentary Competition at the 49th Frameline: San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival (June 18–28).
Niñxs will also screen at Sheffield DocFest in the UK and continue its international run with selections at major LGBTQ+ and documentary festivals across Europe and Latin America.
Filmed over eight years in the small town of Tepoztlán, central Mexico, Niñxs follows fifteen-year-old Karla, a spirited trans girl navigating adolescence with humor, imagination, and radical self-expression. Supported by a loving, nonconformist family yet living within a largely conservative community, Karla’s story unfolds through a unique blend of observational filmmaking, stylized reenactments, and TikToks, offering a transformative vision of trans childhood told from within the community.
Director Lapuerta, a former educator and activist, shares a deeply personal bond with Karla. Together, they blur the boundaries between filmmaker and subject, co-creating a cinematic diary that deconstructs adult-centric narratives and reimagines what it means to grow up trans—on their own terms.
A joyous, anarchic, and genre-defying exploration of trans adolescence, Niñxs emerges as both a scrapbook and a political statement that reveals the universal journey of discovering oneself on the path to adulthood. Through this playful and collaborative process, the film invites audiences to laugh, reflect, and embrace the transformative power of identity and self-acceptance.
