Mosquita y Mari (2012) on Netflix
Sheltered Yolanda, set on her parents' college dream, and street-wise Mari, who helps raise her sister, see only their differences. When Mari saves her at school, the pair become study partners.
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- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.3/101,050 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Plot summary
Yolanda Olveros, nicknamed Mosquita, is a sheltered only child whose single concern is the college future her parents have planned for her. Mari Rodriguez, her new neighbor, is street-wise, the elder of two, carrying the weight of her younger sister while their mother works to keep the family above water; their father has recently died. Both girls are fifteen, and at first each sees only how different the other is. When Mari saves Yolanda from an incident at school and faces expulsion for it, the two are assigned as study partners. A friendship forms that neither girl can easily name or explain.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mosquita y Mari (2012)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Mosquita y Mari used a youth mentorship program in production: every department head mentored a young person from the area, most of the film's young characters were played by residents of Huntington Park, and locals scouted and secured shooting locations at a discount.
- Aurora Guerrero has said the film grew out of her own experience: looking back, long before she identified as queer, she realized her first love was one of her best friends, a friendship she called tender, sweet and sexually charged that never crossed that line.
- Guerrero wrote the concept as short stories about two girls growing up together, based on a friendship from her youth, for a film-school exercise about "writing what you know"; she then spent seven years adding to the series and editing it into one feature film.
- Mosquita y Mari had a production budget of $80,000, and the entire budget for Aurora Guerrero's film was funded on Kickstarter.
- Guerrero searched SoundCloud and Remezcla for recent music by Latino artists for the soundtrack and worked with composer Ryan Beveridge; she wanted a fresh soundtrack that avoided clichés common in American films with Latino characters, such as strumming guitars.
