Dora | The film

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.

for your consideration

“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

Actress Carolina Aponte
Photo by Junting Zhou

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.

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

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Official Trailer

Synopsis

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.