Conceptualized, written, and directed by Julián De La Chica, Dora follows the journeys of a Latina immigrant and her trans roommate/lover in Queens, New York, and how the pandemic shattered their already precarious stances. Dora is an important perspective into the lives of “others” —those deemed as such by the privileged—and how the perception of otherness was more starkly brought to light in the pandemic. De La Chica’s debut film, Agatha, released in 2020, received remarkable critical acclaim, earning accolades at nearly three dozen international film festivals.

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“Julián De La Chica has made a potent film, one that works on several levels simultaneously. Visually poignant, thematically relevant and artistically creative, Dora is a winner.”

— FiFF London

The intersectionality of the harsh inequities of life as an immigrant in the US, when met with the ultimate catalyst—the Covid-19 pandemic—is the setting of Dora, the timeliest of star-crossed lovers stories, by composer and filmmaker Julián De La Chica.

“Dora is a poignant film, full of the poetry of everyday things, enhanced by a refined use of light and black and white film, which leaves with a bittersweet flavor but a new awareness of the life of an Other, singular and universal.”

— PRISMA Rome Independent Film Awards

The Crew

Written, directed & produced by Julián De La Chica
Director of Photography Junting Zhou
Sound Ian Hunter
Assistant of Cam Bryan Berrios

Carolina Aponte as Dora
Ernesto Linnemann as Ernestina
Rocco Ancarola as Stefano
& the Special Appearance of Ramiro Meneses as Federico

“... Dora is both an artistic triumph and an emotional story at its heart.”

— FiFF London

Official Trailer

Dora, a young, aspiring hairdresser from Colombia living in Queens is suddenly faced with the grim uncertainties of the pandemic’s epicenter. Together with her trans lover Ernestina, Dora seeks a means of survival in a city that continuously overlooks its most vulnerable residents. The pandemic embraces the two women, alone together, in Ernestina’s apartment, while they look out their window and realize that their dreams of a city that never sleeps have been quieted by a new, deafening stillness.

Brilliantly incorporating selections from his recent album, Silencios Fatuos Op. 16, De La Chica lets the deeply nuanced music speak for itself and the role that isolation plays in this 30-minute snapshot of love and sexuality, loss and despair.

Julián De La Chica plays Silencios Fatuos, Op. 16, No. 7

IGM Films press

• Interview with Composer Julián De La Chica Chicago Movie Mag

• Article about Agatha Film Daily

• Review by PRISMA Rome Independent Film Awards

• Review by FiFF London

• Julián De La Chica Interview Radio Block Talk Radio

• Julián De La Chica Interview Vents Magazine

• Review by Adrian Perez Lonely Wolf

• Julián De La Chica Interview The Music and Myth

• Julián De La Chica Interview Irreverence Group Music

Links

Watch the Film (for your consideration)