SCREEN | Self-Reflections on 'Beba' x DOXA 2023

"Violence lives in my DNA."

DOXA Documentary Film Festival

First-time filmmaker Rebeca Huntt chronicles her own life and racial identity in the striking coming-of-age, cinematic self-portrait Beba. Her intimate documentary interrogates Huntt's own family history as a series of introspective visual memories recalling her childhood growing up in New York City as an Afro-Latina.

As the daughter of a Dominican father and Venezuelan mother, the film investigates a culture of societal and generational trauma inherited through a legacy of ancient wounds and how it shaped her young life. Throughout Beba, Huntt constantly yearns to forge her own creative path amidst a changing landscape of intense racial and political unrest wherever she is.

Huntt crafts Beba into a haunting Afro-Latinx autobiographical documentary about a New Yorker's cultural past. She stitches together a movingly unvarnished visual poem of a hungry biracial artist trying to define herself through a mixed ancestry of conflict. It's a thoughtful summation of someone struggling to define themselves while addressing internalized anti-Blackness.

Beba screens as part of the 2023 DOXA Documentary Film Festival at The Cinematheque on May 5th. It's also available to stream on Mubi in Canada (on Hulu in the U.S.) or through digital and video on demand.


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