Hi, I’m Stevo!

I’m a Panamanian-American filmmaker, and Fortaleza is my debut feature documentary.

What began as a personal family archive for my one-year-old daughter slowly transformed into something much deeper: a film that explores the painful question of what it means to love someone whose worldview has hardened them into a different person.

Set against the backdrop of rural Panamá - the place I spent all of my childhood summers - Fortaleza captures a once-edenic land that has given way to the undealt with trauma across generations of a Panamanian family.

Watch the teaser:

I was raised by my grandparents in the United States until I was eight. After they retired back to Panamá, I spent my summers with them, soaking up ancestral stories in the very land they took place in. As a bi-cultural American, I so deeply wanted to belong to that place, but struggled to fit in.

Over time, I began to understand that my grandfather’s worldview - and the dream home he built as a refuge - was caving in on itself. Growing up an orphan, my grandfather eventually immigrated to the U.S., where he spent his waking hours pursuing the “American Dream” and saving up to build a house in his native land. Over the years, after several break-ins and encounters with armed robbers, he retreated back to the mindset he had growing up in 1940’s Panamá:

“You’ve got to get the other guy before he can get you.” 

At that point, my childhood home-away-from-home began slowly turning into a self-made prison.

Fortaleza captures a moment in time when I first bring my wife and daughter to meet my grandparents and to stay in that house. Throughout the film, I struggle to accept what they can see more clearly than I can: that the grandfather I loved has become someone more invested in his own legacy and self-preservation than in a relationship with his grandson.

In the film, the disintegration of that relationship unfolds in real time. My desire to maintain a connection with this broken man collides with my need to show up honestly as a husband and as a new father.

As it turned out, I couldn’t do both.

I did not expect the first feature I made in the land of my ancestors to be this raw, or this revealing.

But it is the most real film it could be.

For me, Fortaleza feels urgent because diaspora audiences - Panamanian, Latine, Caribbean, bicultural audiences of all kinds - so rarely get to see their specific emotional inheritance reflected on screen. I also believe there is room for more formally adventurous, deeply personal Latin American cinema to exist on the international stage.

This film is my attempt to contribute to that possibility.

It is a story about Panamá, but it is also a story about what families do with fear. And that story reaches far beyond one house, one country, or one bloodline.

Fortaleza is picture-locked and already in the final phase of post-production. This is not a speculative campaign for a film that might happen someday. The film is alive and very close to completion.

We are raising $21,620 to complete the final stages of post-production so the film can become premiere-ready and begin its festival life.

Your support will directly fund:

• sound design and final mix
• color correction and grading
• original score
• visual effects
• deliverables

Meet the Team

Fortaleza is being completed by a collaborative team of artists working across Panamá, Mexico, and the United States. From post-production specialists to the people who helped shape the film in the field, this project has been built through care, trust, and a shared belief in intimate, formally adventurous cinema. Below are a few of the collaborators helping bring Fortaleza across the finish line.

We are already working with top-tier finishing partners, including… 

Splendor Omnia 

Splendor Omnia is a Mexico City–based post-production studio for image and sound, founded in 2011 and home to over 150 feature films, series, and artistic projects. Set in the mountains of Tepoztlán, 90 minutes from the city, the facility offers Dolby- and THX-certified mixing stages, a Dolby Atmos Near-field Room, and a fully calibrated color grading suite with Dolby Vision mastering capabilities. Their roster includes Academy Award–winning re-recording mixer Carlos Cortés (Sound of Metal) and sound engineers with credits at Cannes, Berlinale, and TIFF. Fortaleza will complete post-production at Splendor Omnia.

Meseta Post 

Meseta Post is a Mexico City–based post-production company specializing in HDR/SDR color grading, VFX, editing, and delivery. Co-founded by colorist and filmmaker Mariano Rentería Garnica and producer Javier Uriel González Benavides, the studio has supervised post on more than 30 projects, with credits spanning Sundance, Cannes, and the Criterion Collection — including restorations of Carlos Reygadas’ Batalla en el Cielo and Luz Silenciosa. Meseta has an established collaborative relationship with Splendor Omnia, having partnered on projects including The Tuba Thieves (Sundance 2023) and Pet Shop Days. 

Other important members of our team include: 

What happens after the campaign

Once the film is finished, Fortaleza will begin its festival run, with the goal of reaching both English- and Spanish-speaking audiences.

If we surpass our initial goal, additional support will go toward:

• festival submissions
• travel and screening support
• theatrical booking and audience outreach
• the materials needed to properly launch the film beyond completion

The first goal gets the film finished. Stretch support helps it travel to screens around the world.

Join us in bringing Fortaleza across the finish line

If this project moves you, I’d love for you to be part of its next chapter.

Every contribution, at any level, helps move Fortaleza toward completion in a real and catalytic way. And if you’re not in a position to pledge, following the campaign and sharing it with others makes a real difference too!

Thank you for believing in this story, in this vision, and in the kind of cinema it hopes to make possible.

With gratitude,

Stephen “Stevo” Concepción Cervantes

Poster artwork by the amazing Jenni Dickens