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A DFW filmmaker has begun a campaign to draw attention to his short film as Oscar nominations approach. He is driven by his love for telling complex stories about Latino people.
“The Mourning Of” is Merced Elizondo’s latest short film in which a woman, Maribel, has been mourning the loss of her mother by secretly attending the funerals of strangers. After weeks of lying and searching for solace through the grief of others, her inability to move on catches up with her.
Elizondo was inspired to produce the film during a vacation to Mexico where his grandmother told him about “mujeres plañideras,” or women hired to weep during a stranger’s funeral. He was fascinated by the idea, and it led him to think of someone going to funerals (without being paid) due to guilt related to the loss of loved ones.
“Can I still, if I close my eyes, still picture their face in my mind?,” Elizondo said. “And then you almost, like, retroactively, go back and you put yourself in this sad, depressive state, because you want to remember that you feel guilty for moving on but what does moving on look like?”
The story was filmed in various parts of Dallas-Fort Worth, including Saint John’s Anglican Church in Fort Worth. Last month, Elizondo was honored in Dallas for providing representation of and uplifting the voices of Latino people in his films.
Elizondo previously won Best Live Action Short Film for “The Mourning Of” at the 2024 St. Louis International Film Festival and is campaigning in 2025 for the 2026 Oscars.
To become Oscar qualifying, a film must win a top prize at an Academy Award qualifying film festival and then be submitted to the Academy for consideration. Elizondo’s Oscar campaign began on Sept. 1, and the film has screened at numerous festivals, including the Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara in Guadalajara, Mexico; the Dallas International Film Festival; the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival; and the St. Louis International Film Festival.
The next step after winning a top prize is to see if his film can get a spot on the Academy Shortlist of Live Action Short Films, which will include 15 films and be announced on Dec. 16. From the shortlist, the Academy votes again on the five Oscar nominees, which will be announced on Jan. 22.
Elizondo is a child of Mexican immigrants and grew up in Oak Cliff in Dallas. He remembers spending time with his family renting movies from Blockbuster and watching movies like “Star Wars” and all the Disney animated classics. He never thought a Latino person from Dallas could make films and never dreamed big when he was younger, he said.
He enrolled in UT Austin to study advertising, and after completing an internship the summer of his junior year with NBC Universal in New York City, he came back rejuvenated to follow his film dreams. Elizondo signed up for a screenwriting club at school and became a production intern for Revelator Productions. He graduated in 2016 and worked as a production coordinator until 2018.
These were formative years for Elizondo, who saw a string of Mexican filmmakers win Oscars. The list includes Best Picture winners Alejandro González Iñárritu for “Birdman” in 2014 and Guillermo del Toro for “The Shape of Water” in 2017. Alfonso Cuarón won Best Director for “Gravity” in 2014 and “Roma” in 2019.
Films that tell a deeper story about Latino people
Elizondo sees himself as a Latino person who makes films that share stories of Latinos — not about immigration and criminals but dramatic, cinematic stories that go far beyond what he sees as the limited perception of Hollywood.
“It’s time for other people to see themselves in us too, and not just the other way around,” Elizondo said.
Julio César Cedillo plays Father Tomas in the “The Mourning Of.” He was born in Mexico, grew up in the Diamond Hill-Jarvis neighborhood of Fort Worth, and graduated from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School.
He starred in Elizondo’s last short film, “Manos De Oro,” a story about a former mechanic dealing with arthritis who attempts to regain his identity as a working man with purpose.
Cedillo said he was born to be an actor. When he was young, he participated in school plays that helped improve his English and allowed people to see him as something other than an immigrant. He has since performed in roles in films such as Denis Villeneuve’s “Sicario” and Alejandra Márquez Abella’s “A Million Miles Away.”
He says Latino stories in film should be layered and reveal nuances of who Latino people are. Latino people should take responsibility for their own stories, he said.
“The stories we need to tell deconstruct our own communities and reveal humanity for ourselves,” Cedillo said.
Elizondo sees Dallas-Fort Worth as a prime location for the production of films and for actors without having to leave for more famous cities like New York and Los Angeles. He wants to inspire the next generation of young filmmakers from the same area he grew up, and show them that with hard work and a good support system they can share stories they believe are worth telling.
“I think we’re so much more capable, so much more capable of whatever the news and the media and certainly Hollywood thinks about what we’re capable of,” Elizondo said. “I feel as much privilege as I do a responsibility to rewrite the narrative of Latinos in movies that are accepted by the masses.”
“The Mourning Of” will be shown at the Lone Star Film Festival at the Modern Art Museum, 3200 Darnell St, at 11:45 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 30. For tickets go to lonestarfilmfestival.com.
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Kamal Morgan
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