Traditions are often lost between borders, making those that we choose to grasp onto significant and timeless. La Mordida is the centerpiece of any Mexican-American birthday celebration. The tradition feels almost essential; however, La Mordida is distinctive from other traditions as the celebrated person is utilized as entertainment. Its ability to remain relevant across generations begs the question: why did this specific tradition become essential to the Mexican-American birthday party? 

Mordida! Mordida! centers around a father and his two sons as they are forced to confront their familial divide through La Mordida’s particularly controversial status within their home. The film explores how family dynamics and machismo have contributed to La Mordida’s ability to prevail despite its divided perception. This film seeks to consider how the tradition has become a significant signal of birthday party nostalgia.

Mordida! Mordida! Emmanuel, still weary from the first time he was pushed into his cake on his sixth birthday, decides to stop his father, Julio, from pushing his six-year-old brother, Carlos, into his birthday cake. Emmanuel creates a plan to save Carlos’s cake from destruction, but he is unable to plan for his father’s persistence and fails as a result. Carlos is pushed into his cake, but Emmanuel realizes that, despite his failure to stop the Mordida, he has been able to defy the traditional dynamics within his family by allowing Carlos to freely express his emotions. Each character embodies a distinct position within their familial hierarchy, creating tension amongst them throughout the film.

For a film centered on familial relations, we were heavily inspired by our own family photos. Photos saturated with deep greens and golden hues, old homes and distant memories. We want to use our visuals to not only show the warmth of family, but the cool colors of nostalgia.

Growing up in a Mexican-American household, the Mordida was an essential part of many birthday celebrations within our homes. However, we often had trouble accepting that the tradition was meant to be a fun joke, as I felt it wasn’t always fun to spend so much of your birthday sneezing frosting out of your nose, and many family members or friends were visibly upset after a Mordida. This tradition can often be simplified to just an entertaining part of a birthday, but we believe it is incredibly reflective of a family’s relationship and understanding of one another. This film is incredibly close to our familial experiences as directors, as many scenes and conversations are directly inspired by real birthday parties, arguments, and discussions regarding our abilities to freely express our emotions to our traditional families. We hope to make a film in appreciation of the older siblings who have been key in encouraging our expression. 

We have a budget of 4100 dollars. While this is ambitious for a student project, we know that the resources that we will gather through crowdfunding will help us ensure the clarity and conciseness of this visual language. We want to use the money taken from this campaign to be able to find the perfect on-screen family to properly portray these themes of masculinity and tradition. We also want to invest into creating period-specific production design as well as vintage lenses to properly showcase our on-screen family's loving home. If we end up raising more than our goal, we plan to be able to invest this money into being able to put that money into distribution of this short film. We have a consistent reputation with a variety of Film Festivals, and want to be able to send this short film far and wide.

Our team has had a large amount of success within the Texas film festival scene as well as nationwide. Directors Mayra Estrada and Aaron Castellanos's last project "¿Sacaste El Pollo?," won big at the Cine Las Americas Film Festival, and also was selected for an Academy Award Qualifying festival, the Seattle International Film Festival. This project was also selected at cultural festivals like the Houston Latino Film Festival and the Latino Film Market. We are confident that the strength of our team and the strength of our concept will propel us to festival success. We also are looking into ways to distribute this film as an educational tool.

If you are able to pledge to this film, we would be forever grateful for your support. If you are not able to pledge to this campaign, please follow us on instagram at @mayrafilm_ as well as @iamaaroncastellanos and @beachumcreative. On these accounts, you will see our crowdfunding pitch video, which we would love for you to share if you are able! Please share this post as well, which will inform your followers on our message: https://www.instagram.com/p/DQDRxzzEeRR/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==.