Eric goes on what seems like the perfect date. What he doesn't know is that the woman sitting across from him is a bruja, and by the end of the night, his soul is hers. La Santería is a short film that blends romance, horror, and the supernatural into something you don't see coming.
This project started with an itch. In February 2023, I sat down with director and writer Lisa Cerda and we just started throwing ideas at each other. We knew we wanted a woman at the center of it, but not in the way you'd expect. We made her the villain. A Latina character leading the story, but not as the love interest or the sidekick or the stereotype. She's the one taking what she came for. Putting a Latina woman at the forefront of a genre film like this, owning the screen and the power, felt important and honestly just really fun to make.
As Director of Photography, my role was to build a visual world that carried both the romance and the dread underneath it. We developed this together from concept to final cut, and what we delivered made its way through eight film festivals.
