POV, the multi award-winning series, reimagines a more collaborative cinema in Hummingbirds, an upbeat documentary feature that centers on the lived experiences of its protagonist directors, Silvia Del Carmen Castaños and Estefanía “Beba” Contreras, who grew up in the shadow of the Texas borderlands. Offering an unexpected depiction of the US/Mexico border, this sparky and irreverent tale of friendship and resilience explores the crossroads of immigration, gender, sexuality, mental health, and class. Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) is a co-sponsor of Hummingbirds.

Hummingbirds, captured during the balmy summer nights of their fleeting youth in Laredo, Texas, best friends and directors Castaños and Contreras—the former from Laredo and the latter from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico—narrate their coming-of-age journey, transforming their border-town locale into a haven of creative expression and activist mischief. Through collaborative filmmaking, their cinematic self-portrait exalts the potency of friendship and joy as tools of survival and resistance.
 
Between drive-thrus, friends’ couches, and the borderlands, both friends confront the stresses of survival, the future, and the imperative of community building. For them, this means protest action for legal abortion and against border militarization, in a politically divided America. But the summer heat is also a time for poetry and dreams. Their laughter and creative expression cement a sense of solidarity and belonging in togetherness.
 
Castaños and Contreras, aged 18 and 21 when they embarked on the film, navigated their way through uncertainty as Contreras awaited her papers, daring to envision their future amidst the limbo. Stuck in an immigration process over which deportation hangs as a constant possibility, home still seems a fragile concept. Both director/protagonists invite viewers on a journey through their misadventures: trespassing, protesting, and even ‘correcting’ an anti-abortion sign. Between the thresholds of childhood and adulthood, the details of their lives unfold through poignant conversations: reminiscing about childhood deportations, recounting secretive trips to San Antonio for an abortion, and Contreras’s recollection of crossing the border on her mother’s shoulders.

Hummingbirds is an Extra Terrestrial Films production, in association with Cowboy Bear Ninja and Field of Vision. The protagonist/directors are Silvia Del Carmen Castaños, Estefanía “Beba” Contreras. The co-directors are Jillian Schlesinger, Miguel Drake-McLaughin, Diane Ng and Ana Rodríguez-Falcó. The producers are Jillian Schlesinger, Miguel Drake-McLaughlin, Leslie Benavides, Ana Rodríguez-Falcó, Diane Ng, and Rivkah Beth Medow. The co-producers are Isidore Bethel and Dawn Valadez. The executive producers are Rivkah Beth Medow, Jen Rainin, Robina Riccitiello, Gill Holland, and Erika Dilday and Chris White for American Documentary. Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) is a co-sponsor of Hummingbirds.

Hummingbirds will open theatrically at DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema in New York, starting Friday, June 21, before its national broadcast premiere on PBS television on Monday, July 1, 2024, at 10pm/9C (check local listings). It will be available to stream until September 29, 2024, on pbs.org and the PBS App.