Chica Barbosa is a Mexican-Brazilian filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her artistic practice explores narrative, hybrid, and experimental forms of storytelling, often centering on themes of identity, displacement, postcolonial experience, spirituality, and the visible/invisible borders that shape our lives. Her work is grounded in lived experience and community-based storytelling, with a deep commitment to emotional realism and symbolic imagery. She often weaves lyricism, magical realism, and embodiment into her films.
Her work has screened at festivals such as IDFA, Sheffield Doc Fest, Dok Leipzig, Frameline, Outfest, Festival Biarritz Amérique Latine, DOC NYC, LALIFF, and FICG. She was also selected for Berlinale Talents and the Short Form Station with her narrative short in development The Light in the Moon. She also directs branded content and music videos, always aiming to work with diverse teams both behind and in front of the camera.
Chica recently migrated from São Paulo, Brazil, where she was part of the film collective Cinefusão and founded her production company En Caliente Films in 2014. With Cinefusão, she co-organized Cineclube Cinema em Revista, a space for dialogue about film, politics, and art with educators, theater collectives, and independent filmmakers. Chica co-directed LA FLACA (The Bony Lady) with Thiago Zanato, a hybrid short film about a Mexican transgender woman and spiritual leader of the Santa Muerte movement in Queens, NY. The film received multiple awards and screened at over 100 festivals worldwide. Her other collaborations with Bruno Mello Castanho include FERROADA, a hybrid short about a Brazilian undertaker/writer, and MADRIGAL FOR A LIVING POET, a feature documentary awarded with best direction, editing, writing, and character portrayal at a regional Brazilian film festival.
With Fernanda Pessoa, she co-directed SAME/DIFFERENT/BOTH/NEITHER, a video correspondence between two filmmakers in Los Angeles and São Paulo, which premiered at IDFA and was shortlisted for the IDA Awards for Best Short. Together, they also directed SWING AND SWAY, a feature documentary selected for major international festivals and released theatrically in several cities across Brazil.
Chica is currently developing her first narrative feature film to be produced between Mexico and the United States. She is an alumna of Berlinale Talents, Talents Guadalajara, the Points North Fellowship, Arché Doc Lisboa, NALIP Accelerator Program, and the Diverse Women in Media Forum Mentorship Program.
