Rating: NR | Runtime: 78 minutes
Release Date: June 21st, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Extra Terrestrial Films
Director(s): Silvia Del Carmen Castaños & Estefanía Contreras
Co-Director(s): Miguel Drake-McLaughlin, Diane Ng, Ana Rodriguez-Falcó & Jillian Schlesinger

Last one there is a Republican!

That phrase gets screamed twice during Silvia Del Carmen Castaños and Estefanía ‘Beba’ Contreras’ autobiographical documentary Hummingbirds. That’s where their heads are living as non-conforming, border-town-residing, Mexican immigrants (one having crossed over while still in the womb and thus an American citizen while the other lives under the threat of deportation as an illegal seeking a visa) in Laredo, TX. It speaks to the fearlessness of today’s youth having everything to lose and still being loud and proud within an environment overrun by border patrol and Christo-fascist white nationalists. Having each other allows them the courage to be themselves.

Billed as their “last summer together,” the film never makes mention that they’re aware of this fact. Beba awaits visa status and Silvia talks about wanting to leave so they can become better educated in how to return and use their activism to spark change in their hometown, but the pair are mostly just living these days with abandon. They’re committing “light” crimes, flipping the bird to anyone who drives by, and causing a ruckus at Bingo. The opening scene supplies the best sense of the energy to come as Silvia and Beba lie atop a car laughing about the stars. Why is that meaningful? Because we soon discover it isn’t their car once the alarm begins to blare, forcing them to jump off and run away.

Conversations span memories and stories of their border crossings and deportations. There’s talk of clandestine journeys to San Antonio for an abortion and rough familial lives causing them to comment that their friend’s tarot reading of past trauma could pretty much work for anyone they know. Neither really got to be a child thanks to the ever-present responsibility of helping to raise siblings in single-parent homes while struggling to find ways to make money—especially when Beba can’t legally find work at all. But no matter how dark and hopeless their recollections prove, these Gen Z-ers always find a way out to start laughing and cause havoc again.

It’s an interesting project since Silvia and Beba aren’t doing it alone. Despite both always having their phones out filming, the lens from which we’re viewing arrives courtesy of a third party. Enter Jillian Schlesinger and Miguel Drake-McLaughlin as co-directors and supporters of the lead duo’s vision upon reaching out to collaborate after seeing Silvia’s short Ocean. The feature was planned out in 2018 (lists of places and events to capture in hopes of including) and shot in 2019 with as spontaneous and electric a vibe as possible via those constraints. Maybe the camera’s presence therefore inherently infers upon their “performances,” but neither the candor nor the fun is ever compromised. And it looks great too.

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Estefanía “Beba” Contreras (left) and Silvia Del Carmen Castaños (right) spin around on a playground merry-go-round at sunset in a scene from HUMMINGBIRDS; courtesy of Extra Terrestrial Films