The True/False Film Fest kicked off on Thursday, March 3 with the showing of Isabel Castro’s “Mija” at 4:30 p.m. at Showtime Theater. Focused on Doris Muñoz, a Latina-American music manager known for managing Omar Banos, known as Cuco, the film follows her experiences with her family and the music industry as a whole.
The film opens with Muñoz’s homemade family films and her narration. Muñoz said, “As a kid, my two greatest fears were the rapture and my family getting deported.”
Her family is a mixed status household. She is the only one with legal papers as she was born in the U.S. Before she was born, her family emigrated from Tijuana, Mexico, to San Bernardino, California, with her two older brothers.
Muñoz struggled with resentment from her brothers, as her older brother was deported six years before the documentary was filmed. A majority of the film focuses on the “survivor guilt” her family feels at being able to make it in America and her family’s process of gaining citizenship to be able to cross back and forth over the border.
This is coupled with Muñoz’s own struggles in her career. Growing up with Cuco, Muñoz decided to manage him and amplify his mission of making music for immigrant kids like himself. When Cuco gained popularity from his 2017 single “Lo Que Siento” and signed a seven-figure deal with Interscope Records a year later, Muñoz felt like she had reached success. When COVID-19 hit, Banos’ tour was canceled along with his working relationship with Muñoz. She was no longer able to provide for her family, see her brother or not feel like an embarrassment.
“Our parents came to the U.S. for us to succeed, and we spend the rest of our lives trying to honor that sacrifice,” Muñoz said in the film.
However, Muñoz discovered Jacks Haupt, an up-and-coming singer dealing with the same issues as Muñoz. The film shows both women trying to live two dreams at once: making it in the music industry and getting their families’ legal documentation.
The movie was shot beautifully on 35 mm film, and the shots allowed the audience to feel closer to Muñoz and Haupt. By the end of the film, I felt like we were long-distance friends.
I also related to the film’s themes of not being heard, saying “yes” way too much and wanting to make parents who live vicariously through you proud. Being able to see the difficulty in receiving legal citizenship for Hispanic families really opened my eyes to how the process affects the entire family. While Haupt didn’t become as big as Cuco by the end, it was interesting to see what it takes to make an indie artist become mainstream and the toll it can take on everyone involved.
After the movie, Castro and the film’s editor, Ora DeKornfeld, held a Q&A. Castro has been doing documentaries for three decades, focusing specifically on depicting immigration from a journalistic standpoint.
“I wanted to do something that veered away from traditional tropes and show how people and families and individuals still had agency despite being at the frustrating whim of immigration policy,” Castro said.
However, Muñoz wasn’t an open participant at first.
“It was challenging for them because they’re very media literate … [they’re] used to doing interviews and presenting themselves a certain way. One of the biggest challenges in filming was trying to have vulnerability and it took many many months of trust,” Castro said.
Dekornfeld explained her role in the film and how her vision came to be.
“I came on after the hard cut was created, and we just moved stuff around, disassembling and reassembling, but she [Castro] was very clear on what she wanted,” Dekornfeld said.
True/False picked a great film to open the festival with, as the tale of success was both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. As the weekend continues, this film will stick with me for a while. The movie will show again on Saturday at 12 p.m. at the Picturehouse and Sunday at 6:30 p.m. at Missouri Theatre. “Mija” will be available outside of the fest on Disney+ later this year, with FX acquiring rights to the script for content in the near future.
Edited by Shannon Worley, sworley@themaneater.com
