Sundance hit film to be screened at Tempe, West campuses

Independent filmmaker Aurora Guerrero will visit the Valley for two screenings of her movie “Mosquita Y Mari,” which has earned acclaim at the Sundance, Guadalajara, and San Francisco International Film Festivals. In addition to the screenings, Guerrero will lead a master class focusing on independent filmmaking. All three events are free and open to the public.

“Mosquita Y Mari” will be screened at 6 p.m., April 2 in room 230 of the Memorial Union on ASU’s Tempe campus, and at 7 p.m., April 3 in the Kiva Lecture Hall on the university’s West campus. The master class is set for 4 p.m., April 3, also in the Kiva. R.S.V.P.s for the class are requested at EntreNosotrasPhx@gmail.com but the class will be open to the public as space permits.

“We are extremely pleased to bring this talented Latina filmmaker to the Valley,” said Ilana Luna, assistant professor of Latin American studies in ASU’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. “Anyone with an interest in the filmmaking process will be fascinated by Aurora’s stories of how her career in the field has unfolded.”

Guerrero has more than a decade of filmmaking experience. She has directed award-winning short narrative films. Based on the strength of the script for “Mosquita Y Mari,” her first feature-length script, Guerrero was awarded the 2005 Sundance/Ford Fellowship and the 2005 Paul Robeson Development Grant. She was selected to participate in the 2005 Sundance Native/Indigenous Lab, 2006 Tribeca All Access Filmmaker Program, and 2009 Film Independent Producer’s Lab.

“Mosquita Y Mari” also was awarded the 2011 SFFS/KRF grant, LG Cinema 3D Fellowship, and the 2012 Sundance Institute/Time Warner Foundation Fellowship for post-production. Her accomplishments as an emerging writer/director earned Guerrero a slot in Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.”

Guerrero’s film is a coming of age story that focuses on a tender friendship between two young Chicanas. Yolanda and Mari are growing up in Huntington Park, Los Angeles and have only known loyalty to one thing: family. Growing up in immigrant households, both girls are expected to prioritize the well-being of their families. Yolanda, an only child, delivers straight A's and the hope of the American Dream while Mari, the eldest, shares economic responsibilities with her undocumented family as it scrambles to make ends meet.

The Rotten Tomatoes film review website gives “Mosquita Y Mari” a 91 percent positive rating. According to the Hollywood Reporter, “It’s a robust work of self-discovery for two girls at the most awkward and confusing years of their young lives, and a testament to Aurora Guerrero’s storytelling prowess.”

Guerrero’s visit to the Valley is sponsored by Entre NosOtr@s, a cross-campus collective of ASU faculty, graduate and undergraduate students who are working together to foster awareness of transnational Latin American, Chicano/a and Latino/a studies and social justice movements.

This event is made possible by sponsorship from ASU Libraries; Barrett, the Honors College at the West campus; the Committee for Campus Inclusion; Comparative Border Studies; the Graduate and Professional Student Association; the Institute for Humanities Research; New College’s School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies; the School of Social Transformation and the Women & Gender Studies department.