Private Project

EL PAISA

After being rescued by a stern vaquero on the streets of East LA, gay goth skater Fernando must put an end to closeted young love, leading to personal transformation and a newfound connection to familia. A coming-of-age drama, EL PAISA bridges disparate Latine subcultures to celebrate unifying notions of family, heartache and Queer identity.

  • Daniel Eduvijes Carrera
    Director
  • Daniel Eduvijes Carrera
    Writer
  • Miguel Angel Caballero
    Producer
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    El Paisa
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Drama
  • Runtime:
    15 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    May 5, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    60,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English, Spanish
  • Shooting Format:
    Red
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • OUTFEST Film Festival Los Angeles
    Los Angeles, CA
    United States
    July 15, 2023
    World Premiere
  • Long Beach Q Film Festival
    Long Beach, CA
    United States
    September 16, 2023
    Audience Award and Jury Special Mention
  • Highland Park Independent Film Festival
    Los Angeles
    United States
    Jury Award for Best Short Film and Audience Award
  • East Los Angeles Film Festival
    Los Angeles, CA
    United States
    October 28, 2023
    Best Short Film Award
  • South Central Film Festival
    Los Angeles, CA
    United States
    December 9, 2023
    Jury Award for Best Short Film
  • Mexican American Film and Television Festival
    Los Angeles, CA
    United States
    April 21, 2024
  • American Pavilion Emerging Filmmakers Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival
    Cannes
    France
    May 21, 2024
    France
    Best LGBTQ+ Film
  • Cinema Diverse Film Festival
    Palm Springs
    United States
  • Mexican American Film and Television Festival
    Los Angeles
    United States
  • American Library in Paris, Cannes Award Winning Films
    Paris
    France
    Paris
    American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Award
  • PBS Short Film Festival

    United States
  • Austin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival
    Austin, Tx
    United States
  • Vancouver Queer Film Festival
    Vancouver, BC
    Canada
  • Vancouver Latin American Film Festival
    Vancouver, BC
    Canada
  • Way Out West Film Festival
    Albuquerque, NM
    United States
  • Morelia International Film Festival
    Morelia
    Mexico
  • Festival Mix
    Mexico City
    Mexico
  • Cinema Queer Film Festival
    Stockholm
    Sweden
  • Orange County International Latino Film Festival
    Orange County
    United States
    Best US Short Film
  • Imagen Awards
    Los Angeles
    United States
    Best Short Film
  • San Francisco International Latino Film Festival
    San Francisco
    United States
  • Semana de Cine Migrante - Cineteca Nacional
    Mexico City
    Mexico
    Official Selection of National Tour
  • Watsonville Film Festival
    Watsonville
    United States
    Opening Night Film
  • Project Unlonely Films 2026: USA Distribution
Distribution Information
  • PBS / Latino Public Broadcasting
    Distributor
    Country: United States
    Rights: Internet
Director Biography - Daniel Eduvijes Carrera

Daniel Eduvijes Carrera is an accomplished voice in American Latiné filmmaking. His work has screened at the Cannes, Tribeca, Guadalajara, Morelia and Palm Springs Film Festivals, at numerous art museums and at notable cultural institutions including the American Library in Paris and the Cineteca Nacional in Mexico City. He’s the winner of the Imagen Foundation Award, Top Prize winner in Ovation TV’s “Search for the Next Revolutionary Filmmaker” and was recognized as Best Latino Film Director by the Directors Guild of America Student Film Awards. Most recently, Daniel received the Cannes Film Festival American Pavilion Best Short Film Award.

Daniel is a recipient of the National Hispanic Foundation for Arts and National Association of Latino Arts and Culture film grants, won the Djerassi Artist Residency Award for screenwriting, is a fellow of the Produire au Sud Program in France and a fellow of Film Independent’s Project: Involve. He also received the California Arts Council Fellowship as a Los Angeles Established Artist. Daniel belongs to the elite group of Fulbright Scholars in Film (Mexico/USA) and was honored with the Rockefeller Foundation/Tribeca Film Institute Media Arts Fellowship.

Daniel’s two latest films, THE FIRES OF SOLEDAD and EL PAISA were granted the Latino Public Broadcasting Digital Media Fund. THE FIRES OF SOLEDAD premiered at the Downtown Los Angeles Film Festival where it garnered the award for Best Foreign Language Short Film before airing on PBS channels. EL PAISA has screened at over 50 international festivals, has won numerous awards and is also airing nationwide on PBS. Daniel’s latest film, FIAT LUX 5000 received the Netflix/Latino Film Institute Inclusion Fellowship and was recognized with Best Director and Best Actor nods by the Mexican American Cultural Education Foundation.

On top of his directing work, Daniel was Creative Producer and Casting Director on the multiple award-winning documentary WILDNESS (Outfest, SXSW), which explores the Latine Transgender community of Los Angeles. He also serves as Screenplay Analyst for clients including ABC/ Disney, Starz, NBC/Universal and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ Nicholl Fellowship for whom he has read and evaluated over 3,000 feature length scripts with an emphasis on Latine, Queer and Horror genre films. Daniel has taught film courses at Columbia University, led filmmaking workshops for the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization and also mentored new generations of minority filmmakers as a Teaching Artist in Residence through the Tribeca Film Institute.

Driven by stories that reflect his Queer and Mexican immigrant heritage, Daniel achieved highest honors in Film Studies and English Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, studied Cinema and Mexican Culture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and was awarded a Dean’s Fellowship for an MFA in Filmmaking from Columbia University’s Graduate School of the Arts.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I will never forget entering a gay vaquero bar for the very first time and seeing my Tio Luis––a macho cowboy from the sierras of Durango––dancing arm-in-arm with another man. I had never seen anything like it. I had never even pondered the possibility of it. I will never forget entering that gay vaquero bar and seeing what I saw because frankly, after that moment, I would never be the same again.

As the youngest son from a farm-and-factory-laboring immigrant family of nine, I grew up in the United States always coming home to rural Mexico––a bucolic land of memory, Catholicism and gendered traditions in which homosexuality simply did not and could not exist. I arrived at adolescence dancing cumbia and quebradita, wearing cowboy boots and learning to master the guitar so I could perform at Sunday mass. I arrived at adolescence overcome by Cholo culture, barrio gang violence and the constant concern of so many relatives landing in prison. But I also arrived at adolescence burdened by a shameful secret I couldn’t quite make sense of and which, as the time went by, forced me further and further into a lonely place of fear, shame and vigorous introspection.

It has been noted that homosexuality is the only minority group one isn’t born into. As a Mexicano, I could turn to my father, mother and numerous siblings to gauge how I might overcome the cultural difficulties of living in an unfamiliar country. Queerness, on the other hand, meant complete and utter isolation. There was nobody I could turn to with my anxious questions, no built-in community, so my burgeoning homosexuality became antithetical to my Latine culture. Queerness and Latinidad were mutually exclusive, it seemed, thrusting me into a crisis of identity at a woefully young age.

You can imagine, then, my complete shock when I entered my first gay vaquero bar only to find my beloved Tio Luis in the arms of another man. But as I approached the dance floor, I came to realize that, despite the same tejana, the same handlebar mustache and the very same portly build, this wasn’t my Tio Luis after all. No, as I drew closer and the gay vaqueros spun upon the dance floor, they were also mi padre, mi primo, mi padrino. For the very first time in my life I witnessed vaqueros––the veritable embodiment of masculinity to which I was always taught to strive–– participating in queer culture. They were all so strikingly familiar, so much like the men I knew and loved that being at that bar suddenly felt like home.

My mind spun with swift jubilation, ushering in a truly transformative moment. Unexpectedly, I found myself encouraged to embrace both my queerness and my Latine heritage as equally integral parts of myself. EL PAISA examines this singular experience and how it empowered me to finally claim my own intersectional and multicultural Queer identity––an identity that continues evolving to this very day and which enables me to thrive in an increasingly complex world.