Pasta negra by Jorge Thielen Armand
The 2025 edition of the Sundance Film Festival, running from January 23 to February 2, will showcase eleven short films by filmmakers from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Venezuela, and Latino USA. These films will screen in person at Park City and online throughout the country.
The Animated Ahorts section includes Luz Diabla, an Argentine-Canadian co-production directed by Gervasio Canda, Paula Boffo, and Patricio Plaza, which follows Martín, a flamboyant urban raver involved in a strange car accident on his way to a party in the Argentine Pampas. Mexican filmmaker Natalia León’s French production, Como si la tierra se las hubiera tragado, tells the story of Olivia, a young woman living abroad who returns to her hometown in Mexico in hopes of reconnecting with her past.
The Midnight Short Film program will present Platanero by Juan Frank Hernandez, a Dominican filmmaker based in Quebec. The film follows Ti-Frè and Gran-Frè, two brothers of Haitian origin living in a Dominican Republic shantytown, as they struggle to survive. On a full moon night, desperation drives them to steal from a plantation where a mysterious beast prowls among the banana trees.
Also premiering in the Midnight Short Film section is Joanna Fernandez’s The Things We Keep, telling the story of Kate, who comes home to pack up her estranged mother’s house, forced into a caretaker position. While struggling to clear her mother’s hoarded possessions, Kate discovers the insidious nature of her mother’s illness lying behind the house’s walls.
Susana, premiering in the Short Film Program 1, directed by Gerardo Coello Escalante and Amandine Thomas, centers on a middle-aged American tourist who finds herself alone in Mexico City and seizes the chance for a little adventure with a group of young Americans.
The Short Film Program 2 features En memoria by Roberto Fatal and Pasta negra by Jorge Thielen Armand. En Memoria is set in a dystopian future where a mother struggles to complete her daughter’s quinceañera dress. Pasta Negra, a Canada-Venezuela-Italy-Colombia co-production, follows three Venezuelan women who cross into Colombia to buy a single packet of pasta.
Two films headline the Short Film Program 3: Miss You Perdularia and Trokas Duras. In Miss You Perdularia, Brazilian director Manu Zilveti tells the story of “Las Perdularias,” a group of girls at a Cuban high school finding ways to cope with the absences and emptiness on an increasingly depopulated island. Trokas Duras, directed by Jazmin Garcia, explores the inner landscapes of a jornalero’s dreams, his reality in Los Angeles, and his community’s collective labor to elevate their bodies and spirits.
Finally, the Short Film Program 5 includes We’re Not Done Yet by Colombian director Sofia Camargo and The Long Valley by Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck. In We’re Not Done Yet, Alex visits his newly single mother Bettina at her beach house for a weekend. Confronted by her newfound independence, Alex must grapple with his own controlling tendencies. The Long Valley documents the people and landscapes of California’s Salinas Valley, one of the most productive agricultural regions in the U.S.
This exciting selection highlights the diversity and creativity of Latin American and U.S. Latinx filmmakers, bringing compelling narratives to the Sundance spotlight.
