After the Earthquake (Después del terremoto) 
Made with co-writer-director and now-established poet Nina Serrano, After the Earthquake is situated within a Latino community of San Francisco. Through the eyes of a young Nicaraguan female refugee, this rich short explores the multigenerational weight of migration, the harsh reality of socioeconomic disparities, and a youthful determination to dream. The film is a wistful and pointed portrait of the subtleties and complexities of navigating one’s cultural identity.  

Las Madres--The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo  
An Academy Award–nominee for Best Documentary Feature and winner of a Special Jury Prize, Documentary at the 1986 Sundance Film Festival, Susana Muñoz and Lourdes Portillo’s powerful film follows the courageous Argentine women who refuse to forget the 30,000 innocent desaparecidos who were systematically “disappeared” in the aftermath of the country’s Dirty War. This essential history lesson, which covers both Argentina’s difficult history and sheds light on an empowering resistance movement led by the mothers of the deceased, serves too as a shining example of activist filmmaking, a motivation that runs throughout Portillo’s entire career.