Kimberly Bautista

Kimberly Bautista is a Los Angeles-based Colombian and Irish-American filmmaker. She was a Princess Grace Award recipient in 2008 and a Latino Producers Academy Fellow in 2010. She was also the recipient of the prestigious yearlong Latino Artists Mentorship from the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) in 2010. Kimberly’s debut feature-length documentary film, JUSTICE FOR MY SISTER, was a finalist for the 2010 HBO-NALIP Documentary Cash Award in its rough cut state.

In 2006, Kimberly founded and directed the Intercultural Web Exchange, a video pen-pal web program between young women in Quito, Ecuador and young Chicana women in Pomona, California. The project lasted over three years and culminated in a college prep opportunity for the participants. She has been doing media arts work in Guatemala since 2008, looking at the effects of the 36-year internal conflict. Kimberly holds a Master’s in Social Documentation from UC Santa Cruz.

Michael Flores

Michael Flores, a Los Angeles-based Latino editor, is a previous Film Independent Program Fellow, a recipient of the Rodolfo Montes Memorial Scholarship, and a recipient of the National Hispanic Foundation For the Arts Entertainment Scholarship. His editing credits include The Cost of Living (2008 Student Emmy-winning television pilot), The Courtyard (2007), The Girls in the Band, and What On Earth?(2009). He was Assistant Editor on Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child (Official Selection of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival). Most recently, he edited Nick Broomfield’s documentary about Sarah Palin. Michael holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Cinema-Television Production from USC.

Juan Mejia Botero

Juan Mejia Botero is a Colombian documentary filmmaker currently based in Bogotá, Colombia. His work includes Merging Voices: The Youth of El Salvador Speak, the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship-funded A Través de Estos Ojos (Through These Eyes), and the award-winning documentary film about Afrocolombian displacement, Uprooted. Juan is currently working on his next documentary feature, The Battle for Land. He holds a Master’s Degree in Social Documentation from University of California, Santa Cruz in film production.

Cast: The Family

Rebeca Eunice Perez

Rebeca is four years Adela’s senior. She is a single mother of five and has accepted Adela’s three children as her own as well. She helps her mother with their home-based tortilla business and struggles to make ends meet. After a 9-hour shift of making tortillas and caring for the children at home, she pounds the pavement to make things happen for Adela’s murder case on almost a daily basis. She has countless setbacks along the way, but that only fortifies her fight and keeps her going. She is able to transform her pain into a collective healing process and emerges as a feminist leader in her community.

Adela Chacon Tax

She was murdered in 2007 by an ex-boyfriend at the age of 27 after working at a local restaurant/bar for only a week. Her death is the instigating incident of the story. She was the mother of three and dearly loved by her children, mother, nieces, sisters, neighbors and friends for her bold, jokester attitude. Her absence/presence is felt throughout the film during shots of the city at night, her empty bedroom, the clapping of tortillas, and smoke in the kitchen. The family has very few pictures of her, but she remains present during moments of silence and rhythmic clapping.

Mamita

Adela’s mother can’t forgive herself for allowing her daughter to leave that fateful morning for work. Mamita is an elderly, hardworking woman. She sells tortillas in the open-air market after she makes the early-morning batch. She has gotten ill as a result of her daughter’s violent death and easily breaks into tears.

Rebequita Azucena

Adela’s oldest daughter was ten when her mother was killed; by the end of the film she is thriteen. Rebequita, an exceptionally beautiful child, attempts to be the strong one for her siblings and tries to compensate for her mother’s death. Her testimony is crucial in the trial because she identifies Ricardo as the man that used to harass and threaten her mother. She later becomes the target of a drive-by shooting

Angel

Adela’s second child was six when his mother was killed and by the end of the film he is nine. He is a rambunctious child who acts out to get attention. He tends to fight with other children, refuses to go to school, and throws fits from time to time. He longs her hear his mother’s voice again.

Dania

Adela’s youngest child was just barely a year old when Adela was killed. By the end of the film she is four years old. Dania remembers only what people have told her about Adela.

Cata

The oldest of the four sisters, Cata helps watch the children and takes over the tortilla business from time to time when Rebeca needs to make the rounds.

Aura

The second oldest of the four sisters, Aura helps take the burden off Rebeca as well when she can. She does not go to the cemetery for Day of the Dead because it’s too difficult for her to see Adela’s grave.

Cast: Other

Ricardo Antonio Merlos Cojulum

30 years old. He was once Adela’s boyfriend. He used to work as a bus attendant but ends up in jail as a suspect of Adela’s murder. He insists he is innocent.

Dina Donis

She is Ricardo’s young defense lawyer. She is pregnant throughout the court hearings. She too is certain of Ricardo’s innocence and attempts to delegitimize Adela, accusing her of drinking alcohol.

Rotman Perez

The lawyer from the foundation that attends to Rebeca and her case. He breaks the news to her that the initial trial date is suspended due to the fact that the judge who was supposed to oversee the trial is accused of killing his wife.

Romeo Monterrosa

The lawyer from the foundation that represents Rebeca in all the court hearings. He is passionate about seeing to justice in this case, but fears that if the witnesses don’t come to testify, Ricardo might be released.

Edelmira Alvarez

Adela’s friend who testifies what she knows of the abusive relationship that Adela and Ricardo once had. She gets very emotional when she remembers Adela, who stood up for her when her husband would beat her. She has received threats from Ricardo’s friends on the streets and is fearful of testifying.

Juan Davila

Key eyewitness who, on his way to work, saw Ricardo leaving the terrain where Adela was found dead. He received threats from Ricardo’s accomplices and relocated to avoid testifying in court.

Amanda

Rebeca’s neighbor who is inspired to open up and tell her own story of being gang-raped and constantly intimidated by the perpetrator for years thereafter. She sees Rebeca as someone she can turn to in the community.

Rosario “Charito” Escobedo

Social commentator, political activist, and feminist. Rebeca meets Rosario at an activist event in Guatemala City, where she is leading a demonstration on the International Day of Non-Violence against Women.