Esmeralda Hernandez is a Tejana filmmaker from San Antonio, Texas. Her work explores the American experience and other worlds through the lens of Latina protagonists and underrepresented voices. She graduated from the Radio-Television-Film program at The University of Texas at Austin in 2019. Her thesis film Cake had a successful festival run, winning the jury prize for Best College Filmmaker at the San Antonio Film Festival. Her latest film Dream Carriers premiered at the 2022 San Francisco International Film Festival, won the Texas Archive Moving Image jury prize for Best Hecho en Tejas Film at Cine Las Americas International Film Festival and is currently a 2023 PBS short film selection. She is a 2024 fellow of the Hola Mexico’s Tomorrows Filmmakers Today.
Contact: dreamcarriersfilm@gmail.com
Director’s Statement
As a Tejana, I make films for my community. Whether it’s through images of hot Texas landscapes, the sounds of Spanglish at a grocery store or the indigenous, round featured faces I see around me daily, I strive to create films that have an element that can remind someone of home, validate a dream or an experience.
My past films have explored the Mexican-American experience, delving into realities like immigration, identity between cultures, generational cycles and childhood. I aim to bring a sensitivity and honesty for representing where I come from and include those who have lacked visibility in past generations of storytelling.
