All About New York Latino Film Festival

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

Ahead of presenting her directorial debut De Lo Mio at next week's New York Latino Film Festival, Dominican American filmmaker Diana Peralta talked to People CHICA about why this film is so personal to her. Spending the summers at her grandma's house in the Dominican Republic inspired the New York-born Peralta, 29, to make the movie there last year. "I spent my childhood without power and electricity, finding ways to entertain myself in this house, and started inventing stories and scenes that would happen in the rooms," she recalls. "I wrote this script inspired by the house, Dominican culture and my relationship with my own sister, because the main characters are two sisters that are really close."

The film is a tribute to her own family, in a way, although it mixes fiction with autobiographical experiences. “My grandmother passed away in February, a few months before we started filming, and we found out after she passed that the house was going to be sold and bulldozed, so when we had the opportunity to shoot this, the family was really happy that we were able to capture the house on film before it was destroyed. Everyone is excited that we have immortalized it on screen,”she says.

Peralta's sister was a big part of the film. “My little sister is one of the producers, so not only is she the inspiration for one of the characters, but she was there helping me on the film,” she adds.

The filmmaker's late grandmother was a recognized pathologist and scientist, so Peralta grew up around successful women and was fearless in pursuing her own career on film. “There are not enough Latina directors and producers out there, so there is a whole gap of stories that are not being told. Unless we jump in and do the work ourselves, it's not going to happen,”she reflects. "We need to take the lead and push for our stories."

Being an independent filmmaker has many challenges, she admits. The film's budget was 2019.