This short documentary centers around the neighborhood in Mexico City that some call “Little LA”, where former Dreamers frequently work and gather after being deported from the U.S. Many are young adults who have spent most of their lives in the United States. Some of them don’t speak Spanish and end up living in a country they can barely remember, often working in the English language call centers that the neighborhood grew up around. In Little LA, they set to work reconstructing the home to which they can’t return.

Director Biographies

Carlos Montaner is a Puerto Rican–born director and cinematographer whose work is deeply shaped by documentary storytelling and a Latinx, diasporic perspective. Raised in Madrid in a family of Cuban exiles, Carlos has long been drawn to stories that explore identity, history, and human resilience. His passion for documentaries includes extensive shooting for the History and Discovery channels, as well as directing THE GRANDCHILDREN OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION, an official selection of the Cincinnati Film Festival and the International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Brussels. Carlos earned a BFA at the School of Visual Arts. He went on to receive an MFA in cinematography from AFI and was further mentored by Michael Ballhaus. His narrative work includes WAKING KARMA (XYZ Films), which he co-directed with Liz Fania Werner, and numerous award-winning shorts and features.

Liz Fania Werner is a writer and director whose work integrates genre with socially conscious themes and character-driven storytelling. Most recently, she wrote and co-directed her first feature film, WAKING KARMA, a psychological thriller starring Michael Madsen, distributed by XYZ Films and now streaming on Tubi. Liz, originally from the Bronx, NY, got her MFA in Writing for Screen and Television from USC where she earned an Annenberg Fellowship. She went on to write on television drama RPM MIAMI for Mun2 network; to develop the feature adaptation of the novel BABYLON SISTERS by Oprah Book Club author Pearl Cleage and to pen a biopic about WNBA player Abby Bishop for Sentient Entertainment. “Into the Uncanny Valley,” the award-winning short film that she co-directed with Carlos Montaner, was featured in 11 festivals, including L.A.’s Screamfest and HBO’s New York Latino Film Festival. Liz lives in Los Angeles, though she considers herself a life-long New Yorker.

Director Statement

A few years ago, I was driving to the Valley, when I heard an NPR story about a neighborhood in Mexico City called “Little LA” where former Dreamers were living and working after being deported from the U.S. under the first Trump administration. These were young adults who had spent most of their lives in the United States. Some of them didn’t even speak Spanish. But when ICE deportations hit their then record high in 2018, a lot of them ended up living in a country they could barely remember. They set to work reconstructing the home they weren’t allowed to go back to – working in the English language call centers that the neighborhood grew up around, selling burritos, hamburgers and hot dogs and giving each other fade haircuts and tattoo sleeves like the ones they would have gotten in Los Angeles.

Carlos is an immigrant himself and has two families of immigrants: his Cuban side, who are political exiles, and then a Mexican side who are very much involved in issues of immigration. One is his ex-brother in law, news anchor Jorge Ramos and the other is his niece Paola Ramos, also a journalist. Both are fierce advocates for justice for immigrants and both have helped him to connect to the struggles of Mexicans in this country for decades. When I told him what I had heard, we knew right away that this was a story that had to be told. As ICE raids in Los Angeles intensified, so did our determination. Finally, we traveled to Mexico City in May of 2025 on a grant from Loyola Marymount’s School of Film and Television. Once there, we interviewed ten people in five days to learn about the issues on the ground there. “Little L.A.” is the result of those conversations.

Link to official press kit.