It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young person must decide between falling in line with the hopes and dreams placed upon them by their family or following their own desires for authentic self-expression. Gabriela, a coming-of-age short film, written and directed by Evelyn Lorena, follows a young Latina immigrant woman (also played by Lorena) who dreams of becoming a great swimmer in the American South. Even though she is undermined by her overprotective mother’s worries stemming from the looming insecurity of the family’s legal status and societal discrimination, Gabriela’s passionate tenacity sets her on a journey toward self-discovery.
Here, the filmmaker talks to Deadline about overcoming challenges, self-acceptance and subverting stereotypes for immigrant families.
DEADLINE: Where do you think you got your passion for filmmaking? Are your parents creative?
EVELYN LORENA: Honestly, it was some weird gift from the heavens because I had already had a natural tendency towards language as a child. I was a very voracious reader. And I think it was a mixture of seeing A Beautiful Mind, Spider-Man and Eternal Sunshine and different films that were coming out. I was super young and didn’t have the capacity to understand, but I felt so viscerally connected to all those films. And I started acting in plays. I think my passion for it came from this idea of really wanting to understand other people. I was fascinated with how people were able to be so different. Nobody in my family [has a background in filmmaking]. My parents struggled very much with me doing this until recently. When we went to the Richmond International Film Festival, my dad commented, he doesn’t tell me that he’s proud of me very often, but he was saying that he felt a sense of pride because there were a lot of other films there that involved the filmmakers’ parents or they were from another famous filmmaker. And my father was like, “You just figured this out for yourself in a strange way.” I’m very passionate about [film], and I think because I’ve also learned that the more I’ve learned to empathize with people and see these different narratives, the more I feel that I’ve changed and grown as a person. So, if I’ve changed and grown, I know that my work or other people’s work will also be able to do that.
DEADLINE: What inspired you to make Gabriela?
LORENA: I was concerned with the way representation was in the media. One of the things I’ve tried to make really special about the film is that it goes into the inner life of somebody, particularly an immigrant. Immigrant stories were always [depicted as] very traumatic, or about the way that people crossed the border, or about drugs or something that I didn’t necessarily relate to, yet I was in an immigrant family. My parents did not go through some of those particular things, yet they still had to go through what every immigrant goes through in terms of an identity crisis, including myself. I’ve always felt that I’ve straddled two worlds, and so that, in particular, was the original basis for how do I craft a character that’s in between two worlds and showing her inner life? And then it got even more complex as I was facing health issues with my own life during shooting. I had a whole new concept of what personal freedom was and strengthening that resilience of character and bringing that to the story and showing that through her character, her own resilience, and her needing to find herself and reconnecting with her culture, her mother, her family, her heritage so that she can move forward, which is super important for any immigrant community.
It doesn’t have to just be Latinos. It could be anyone trying to reconnect to their culture and themselves so they can move forward in the world with power, which is such an important thing right now, especially as they try to dehumanize immigrants constantly. The fortitude of personality and strength of character is really important and what makes the story special in the end. Despite whatever obstacles you have, you can craft a sense of personal freedom for yourself.
DEADLINE: You are a recipient of the Netflix and Latino Film Institute’s Indigenous Latino Fellowship. Can you talk a bit more about that?
LORENA: I was actually in a hospital bed when my friend sent me because they do an open call. She sent it to me and I asked myself, am I going to be able to make this deadline? I had been working on the script already, a couple of months before that. I just submitted through the regular means, and I was one of the five filmmakers chosen for that year. Which was such a blessing because I was at a crossroads myself where I was like, “Do I want to continue in the industry? I’m dealing with all this health stuff. How do I manage it?” It was like a little sprinkling of encouragement. But that just came about by literally just an open call.
DEADLINE: In other interviews, you’ve talked about overcoming your health issues a bit. I want to ask, in your coma situation and going through that, was that a crossroads for you? How did you get through that and continue the filmmaking journey instead of leaving it all together?
LORENA: To be honest with you, I’m not sure if it was a super conscious choice that I was like, “OK, I’m going to keep going,” or not. I think it was just the way that things lined up. I did have the moment, as I said when I was in the hospital. When I finally woke up, I was just like, “Well, now I have to re-learn how to walk again and even move my neck or fingers” because everything was not functioning completely. That was several months of my life in rehab and things. There were moments where I’d get really sad and frustrated, but there was just something in me that I’d been given a second chance. And even when I was having frustrations, I was like, there is a reason I’m here, as cheesy as that can sound. And I just chose to keep going. That’s the most powerful thing, which is similar to the story, where things don’t go her way, and they don’t necessarily go the way she wants, but by the end, she chooses to go forward with a different sense of self. That was really important to me. That’s what makes the short special: oftentimes, you may watch a film and it’s encouraging in a very one-dimensional way or like, “Stay positive.” And I don’t know if it’s necessarily about positivity as much as inner strength.
DEADLINE: Talk about having this film take place in North Carolina. Usually, when you get these stories, they focus on California, Texas, Florida and New York.
LORENA: I have family right there in North Carolina. But I think that’s another thing that makes the story and the short special because it adds to the nuance of our community. And I feel like even things that are negative and complicated need to be expressed in stories, oftentimes, especially with certain Latino narratives. They have been relegated to very particular types of storylines, or even in more positive aspects where it’s just like best friend sassy things, and nothing wrong with that. Those are their own experiences, that’s great. I just wanted to see something a little bit different and that had a lot of complications. Because for me, it was difficult growing up around a sea of blonde, blue-eyed people and trying to have a sense of self-worth. Especially when people would have an enormous amount of microaggressions thrown at you constantly. And then when my parents came, even more so where you had overt racism. My dad, I don’t know if he would want me saying this, but people would sometimes just be like, “Go back, wet back,” just to his face.
Nuance is important to me, even when talking about villainizing something. I didn’t want the South to just be seen as a landscape of, “Oh, it’s a bunch of racist people,” because that’s so reductive and one-dimensional, too. I wanted to feel like it was also a lived-in place. In some ways, this was their home or their home away from home, and still have that sense of complication.
DEADLINE: You show the nuance of the multi-generational experience, too. Gabriela’s mom isn’t really supportive of her going against the grain. Gabriela wants the freedom to follow her own dreams. Talk about crafting that conflict and narrative.
LORENA: It was important to me that each character had a real sense of believing what they were about. So, Gabriela really believed this was her way out. And I think the complication came from those two points of view clashing. Same thing with the mother, the mother really believes that there is a more practical avenue for Gabriela and that it would be better for her. I had those discussions with the actress [María Telón] about how important that was. And she actually related a lot to it because she said that she was having that same discussion with her own son, among other things, and that there was that generational clash. Also, a lot of the inspiration for that was from my own life. Because I was explaining at the beginning of our chat that this wasn’t easy with my parents or a lot of other things. Sometimes I joke where I say all my family; my brother, mother and father sometimes team up together [against me] because they have a very similar point of view and I have a very different one [laughs].
I wanted to infuse that in Gabriela. When people watch the film, that’s what they relate to. I wanted to have a sense of universality because I think that’s what makes the short special, because of the universal nature of it. Originally, I thought that the film would just resonate with Latinas or something. But the people who have come up to me the most after screenings have been men. Which I thought was crazy. But I guess it speaks to what we tried to do about making that generational struggle a little universal.
DEADLINE: In a coming-of-age story, young characters usually try to express themselves through art. How did swimming come to the forefront for Gabriela?
LORENA: I love the idea of water. Water to me, has been very healing. When I go to the ocean, there’s a connection to nature from my own indigenous heritage and learning about how that affects the spirit. So, that was the first original impulse. I knew I wanted to do something with water. In terms of her being a swimmer, I think it was arbitrary at first. Because I didn’t want someone to watch the film and think this is exactly [my] life and have the parallel of an artist. And it felt a little bit vain to me to do it that way. For myself, not because other people. Other people can do it, just for me, it felt that way. I needed to distance myself a little bit from it. So that was the second one. And then the third, just as the story grew, I saw that swimming was the best metaphor because so many of us are constantly paddling, looking, finding, and trying to keep heads above water, literally, and survive and have all these different struggles. And I couldn’t think of a better way or a physical sport, besides running, that has a similar feel to it.
DEADLINE: What would you like audiences to get from your short film?
LORENA: I feel that the first thing is that we all, whether you’re Black, white, or Latino, that you contain multitudes, that you are someone who is vast, and that you deserve to have dignity and grace. Hopefully, when you finish watching the film, you will have a sense of that from Gabriela and, through Gabriela, understand that. Also, through her character’s journey, understanding that you do have the strength to continue and that you have the perseverance to believe in yourself and to find empowerment. To me that’s the ultimate American dream, when you can find a sense of yourself and have that sense of self that is going to help you achieve your goals.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]