Valeria Contreras is an award-winning filmmaker from the United States-Mexico border and a Producers Guild of America Create Fellow, Film Independent Producing Fellow, and El Paso Community Foundation Border Art Resident. Valeria’s work focuses on amplifying untold narratives from the border region. Her short film Homesick screened at festivals including Femme Frontera and the Oscar-qualifying Atlanta Film Festival. In addition to her feature screenplay Oranges, Valeria is in development on the Untitled Texas Latina Project, an anthology feature film exploring Latine identity in Texas through the lens of five award-winning Latina directors and writers. The Texas project has received support from the Austin Film Society, SFFilm, WarnerMedia, and The Gotham. Valeria holds degrees from the University of Chicago and Columbia University in New York City, where she earned an M.F.A. in Film and received the Michael Hausman Foundation Award and 3Pas Studios Award. She served on the Young Mezcal Jury at the Guadalajara International Film Festival.

Oranges — When free-spirited Lucia decides to leave home for a new adventure in Mexico City, her responsible older sister, Griselda, must confront her own fears and regrets as they share a bittersweet farewell at a streetcar stop in West Texas. But as the two sisters go through decades without the other, their close-knit connection and bond starts to fray, emphasized each time Lucia returns home to visit her beloved border town.