Look Again. Jan 19 – 29, 2012 Park City, Utah

With this auspicious feature film debut, Aurora Guerrero explores the complexities of a budding friendship between two Chicana high schoolers in Los Angeles’s Huntington Park. Yolanda is stellar in her studies and makes her parents proud, while Mari has just moved to town with her undocumented family. On her first day of school, Mari is assigned to be Yolanda’s study partner. After a rocky start, the two find a bond that confuses them at times. Guerrero’s steady direction allows more intimate understanding of the girls’ aspirations and their families’ expectations.

With evocative performances from Fenessa Pineda as Yolanda and Venecia Troncoso as Mari, we experience their struggles: adjusting to their new reality; and charting their own paths in the face of parental sacrifice, immigration experiences, and peer pressure. In Mosquita y Mari, Guerrero delivers an impressionistic meditation on desire, set in a vibrant Latino community, and emerges as an exciting new voice in American cinema. - B.R.

Chad Burris
CHAD@INDIONGROUP.COM
Mosquita y Mari
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Aurora Guerrero's short films include Pura Lengua (All Tongue) and Viernes Girl. In 2005 Guerrero was selected as a Sundance Institute/Ford Foundation film fellow and participated in the Native Lab Fellowship with her Mosquita y Mari script. The project also participated in Tribeca All Access (2006) and the 2009 Film Independent Producers Lab. Most recently, Mosquita y Mari was awarded the 2011 SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant and an LG Cinema 3D Fellowship, and Guerrero was named a Time Warner Fellow. Guerrero holds degrees from the University of California, Berkeley in psychology and Chicano studies and CalArts in directing.