The Mill Valley Film Festival (October 2–12, 2025) awarded this year’s Mind the Gap Creation Prize to Tatti Ribeiro for her debut feature film Valentina. Set in the border town of El Paso, Texas, Ribeiro opens the film with the following disclaimer: “Most of the people, places, and events in this film are real. Valentina is not.” In a phone interview, the director compared her film to Borat and Nomadland, hybrid narratives that feature actors interacting with non-actor civilians. Keyla Monterroso Mejia (Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Studio) plays Valentina but Ribeiro places the character in and amongst the everyday lives of El Pasoans.
“I really like the approach of being able to control one person in a preordained story,” Ribeiro said. Before they’d shoot a scene, she and Monterroso Mejia would talk about the game plan but when someone would unexpectedly enter the frame they’d improvise. She explained that, “It’s heavily unscripted in some ways and controlled in other ways.” Scenes take place at a blood bank, a church mass with a priest delivering his sermon, and at a real border crossing.
The opening sequence follows Valentina and her brother as they walk across the border from Mexico into El Paso. It’s not a dangerous crossing and no law enforcement agents question or detain them. Ribeiro has spent a considerable amount of time working in El Paso. Her experience of the place diverged from many of the overheated headlines that get people’s online attention. “We hear so much psychotic drama about the border and I just have no interest in exploring trauma porn,” she said. “Over the last ten years reporting in and out of El Paso, I was having a great time. That’s what I wanted to show.”
A similar shot opens Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario but in his film there’s a shootout. “I’ve been in and out of El Paso working as a reporter for the last eight to ten years and you cross it all the time,” Ribeiro said. People cross over for dinner, for dental work, to hang out and see their families. It’s about a five minute walk. Even so, the film captures the inherent tension involved in crossing a border. “That’s the whole point. They want you to be nervous. That’s what surveillance is for,” she said.
The comic situations in Valentina are defined by those border tensions. The character races around the city to get to her many part-time jobs while also attending to a series of bureaucratic obstacles. Ribeiro flashes Valentina’s diminishing bank account totals on screen to punctuate certain situations. Her account plummets into negative numbers after her car is impounded. The plot mashes up the tragicomic ideas in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance. There are distressing moments throughout the film but the director eventually veers away from a tragic take on a challenging day.
Casting Monterroso Mejia as the central figure, sets and fixes the movie’s tone. The actress is easy to identify with. She inspires our sympathy as we watch her deal with parking tickets, takes care of her father’s paperwork, and negotiates paychecks. Ribeiro was in the early process of outlining the film when she watched Monterroso Mejia’s episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. “I was thinking about what actors could handle it,” she recalled.
“Obviously, somebody who’s completely bilingual, funny, charming, sharp — all these things.” The two of them clicked at their initial meeting. “It changed everything because, ultimately, the actor is more important than the character that’s in your mind,” Ribeiro said. “So we morphed it to her and Keyla became such a big part of the tone.”
Unlike Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat character and Nathan Fielder’s bent reality programs, people in El Paso greeted Monterroso Mejia as Valentina with love rather than skepticism, hostility or wariness. “We put her in these moments where I thought there would be more tension or maybe she would get into an argument,” Ribeiro said. “Instead, people were wanting to help her or to talk with her.” The character became softer and nicer because of these real life interactions.
“These are real people, real migrants and I don’t think the best way to approach them is to ask them about something harrowing,” Ribeiro said. “The best way to interact with people and show any version of humanity is through a sense of humor and being normal.”
Valentina will have its world premiere at MVFF on Friday, October 3 at the Sequoia Cinema in Mill Valley. Tatti Ribeiro and Keyla Monterroso Mejia are expected to be in attendance. A second screening will take place on Monday, October 6 at The Rafael Film Center.
