Folk Frontera

In sparsely populated Texas towns, folklore looms as large as the landscape, blending Mexican, American, and unmapped myths into something surreal and unique.

Length
26 minutes
Funding Initiative
Short-Form Series and Special Projects
Co-Director/Co-Producer

Alejandra Vasquez

Alejandra Vasquez is a Mexican-American filmmaker and producer. She grew up in West Texas and studied film at UC Berkeley. In the past, she worked for TED and NPR. Most recently, she was the Production Coordinator for Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. (2018), winner of the Sundance Special Jury Prize. She’s also an Associate Producer for Us Kids (2020), set to… Show more premiere at Sundance in competition and a Co-Producer on a forthcoming documentary by Nanfu Wang. As a series producer for Topic Studios, she recently completed a four-part series Night Shift and ten-part series Eating. Show less

Co-Director/Co-Producer

Sam Osborn

Sam Osborn is a Mexican-American filmmaker who has directed films for Topic Studios, Vice News, Great Big Story, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Vox, GQ and more. Most recently he completed the first season of Eating, an ongoing documentary series for Topic Studios, along with the four-part documentary series Night Shift. The pilot episode of the interactive… Show more digital series Language Keepers premiered at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and was supported by the Alaska Humanities Fund and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He's currently completing work on his debut feature-length documentary, Universe. Show less

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The Film

Along the U.S.-Mexico border, where the vast wilderness of Big Bend National Park is sliced through with smuggling routes and sparsely populated towns, meanders a road that ventures where even the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t deliver. Permanent residents and wayward pilgrims inhabit towns throughout far west Texas like Candelaria, Marathon, and Del Carmen. In these places, local folklore looms as large as the landscape, sometimes blurring the lines between veracity and a well-told tale. While many of the stories told about border towns focus on political banter, the stories told from within these towns take a far more personal tone. Their relative isolation leaves the towns along this route to craft their own distinctive cultures – blending Mexican, American, and unmapped myths into something slightly surreal and utterly unique.

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