Pangea unfolds over one charged weekend in Harlem between former lovers Rita, a Cuban-Bulgarian performance artist hungry to be seen, and Echo, an Afro-Latina corporate worker suppressing her creative instincts. When Rita visits Echo after months apart, they enter into a high-stakes emotional and erotic game, slipping back into familiar roles: Rita playing the victim, Echo the aggressor. What begins as playful edge-play escalates into real hurt, exposing unresolved racial tension, artistic rivalry, and incompatible desires. As their dynamic spirals, both women are forced to confront whether intimacy is possible without performance — and if the person you’re most drawn to may also be the one who shatters you.

Because we are living in a moment obsessed with identity and visibility, yet terrified of the messy emotional truth that lies underneath those labels.

Pangea cuts into that tension, telling a story where intimacy, race, power, and art collide not in theory, but in the visceral, erotic, psychological reality of two women who can’t escape each other or themselves. We rarely see Latina queer relationships portrayed with complexity, danger, and artistry — not as political statements, but as flawed, raw humans trying (and failing) to connect.

Cinema Vérité meets French New Wave in a slice of life, self aware comedy with tinges of melancholy and the erotic. Shot in stark black and white, the film blends meticulously composed frames with raw, handheld moments, capturing the spontaneity and emotional depth of the actors’ improvisational performances. This approach immerses the audience in a gritty yet poetic realism, where silence and the sounds of the environment are favored over a score.

The sexual scenes in the piece are all integral to moving the plot and character arcs forward. Thus it is not necessary to be gratuitous with nudity but rather, to focus on the specific body language and facial expressions that occur in the moments where the trust between two sexual partners goes to the next level. As a female director working with a female DP, I’m excited to bring the feminine gaze into a genre historically dominated by men.

Because this project is so deeply personal, I’ve spent the last four years writing and rewriting it—trying to get to the heart of what I’m really trying to say. In the early stages, I filmed loose vignettes as a way to explore the world and the characters. Now, after all that time and searching, I finally feel ready to bring the story to life. We are currently in early pre-production and financing. We are working on hiring department heads, casting, and creating the visual language of this film. We’re so excited to begin to build our audience through Seed & Spark.

As a first time filmmaker, I am excited to share this film with festival audiences by submitting to as many festivals as possible – it’s part of what we are raising money for! We will cast a wide net with submitting to well-known, top-tier festivals as well as submit to festivals that reflect our cast and crew who count on diverse audiences. After our festival run, we look forward to finding an online home for the short film, whether it be on Vimeo, Omeleto, or any other number of short film platforms.

The process of making a film is deeply humbling, and it involves the kindness and generosity of so many people. But that generosity shouldn’t involve free labor. Particularly as a first time Latina filmmaker working with many crew members of marginalized communities, I want to ensure that our crew is compensated fairly for their labor. This film will definitely still be scrappy and shoestring–most independent short films are! But we need your support to tell a story that’s original and thought-provoking while also making sure the folks in front of and behind the camera are able to pursue fulfilling careers where they use their skills to pay their bills. Your support will help us create an original and thought-provoking story, while also empowering a team of talented women to build sustainable careers in this industry. We need your help to make this vision a reality.

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