TALK ME

Talk Me is set in an alternate reality where intimacy and communication follow inverted rules—not as a conceptual provocation, but as a way to expose how emotional and social tensions persist regardless of context. Framing the story as a fable allows the audience to engage openly, without judgment, and reflect inward rather than search for explanations.

My work often explores what I call “little cages”: invisible emotional structures built for protection that gradually become forms of confinement. These can appear as relationships that feel safe but quietly suffocating, cultural norms that reward adaptation over authenticity, or love itself when it restricts rather than liberates. One of the least visible cages is mixed-race identity—living between cultures, subtly accepted but never fully belonging. That quiet displacement deeply informs how I observe people and construct characters.

Returning to my hometown of Valencia was essential to telling this story. Growing up mixed-race there was not defined by overt rejection, but by ambiguity—being included, yet always marked as different. That experience continues to shape my interest in intimacy, identity, and subtle alienation.

This film reflects what has become my signature: characters who move fluidly across languages, identities, and emotional states, navigating societies that neither fully reject nor fully embrace them. I’m drawn to human contradictions and the arbitrariness of social norms—how openness in one context can coexist with repression in another. Norms may shift, but exclusion often persists.

Following my previous short film Deliver Me (SXSW 2023), I wanted to push world-building further while staying grounded. Talk Me blends realism and surrealism to feel unmistakably present, yet slightly off. Exploring quiet, invisible pain—third-culture identity, emotional repression, unspoken longing—requires experimentation and risk. With the support of New York University and an exceptional international and local team, I was able to bring this project back to Valencia, marking a turning point in my career and personal journey, and allowing me to tell a story that is both deeply personal and deliberately surreal.