‘Beba’ Trailer: Neon’s Festival Sensation Takes Personal Look at NYC-Born Afro-Latina

Ryan Lattanzio
Updated ·2 min read

After premiering at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival, Rebeca Huntt’s feature directorial debut, the documentary “Beba,” is now bound for a movie theater near you. Acclaimed on the festival circuit and poised for a summer sleeper release as only Neon can mount, this hypnotic portrait takes no prisoners and leaves no casualties in its director’s searching portrait of her own NYC-born, Afro-Latina roots.

The film will next screen at the Tribeca Film Festival before its nationwide opening, and follows Huntt as she undertakes an unflinching exploration of her own identity through the format of a cinematic memoir. Reflecting on her childhood and adolescence in New York City as the daughter of a Dominican father and Venezuelan mother, Huntt investigates the historical, societal, and generational trauma she’s inherited and ponders how those ancient wounds have shaped her, while simultaneously considering the universal truths that connect us all as humans.

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Throughout the movie, Huntt searches for a way to forge her own creative path amid a landscaped of intense racial and political unrest.

In his review for IndieWire, Robert Daniels wrote:

First-time filmmaker Rebeca “Beba” Huntt opens her eponymous debut “Beba” — a complicated and bold self-portrait, exploring identity, internalized anti-Blackness, and generational trauma — with a declarative statement: “You are now entering my universe.” Her world, initially, is visually translated via a shaky cam walking through a twisty, moss-smeared forest. A woozy horn hypnotizes over a collage of images: Huntt swaying to the sea, people at the beach, her hand in the sand — all shot on a gorgeous 16mm. Her spoken-word poetry, wherein she says “violence lives in my DNA,” lays the groundwork for the next 79 unflinching minutes.

Huntt wrote and directed the film and produced it with Sofia Geld. Oscar nominee Petra Costa, Alyse Ardell Spiegel, Alessandra Orofino, Joy Bryant, and Inuka Bacote-Capiga serve as the pic’s executive producers.

“Beba” adds to Neon’s strong summer slate that includes the porn industry drama “Pleasure” (out this Friday), David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future,” as well as fest favorite coming-of-age drama “A Chiara.”

The film opens in New York and Los Angeles on June 24, followed by a nationwide rollout. Watch the trailer, exclusive to IndieWire, below.

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