Border’d
Border’d (2019-2022)
Starring, created, co-directed and produced by: Lauryn Lugo, Andrew & Adrian Nuño
How do we break down the borders we set on who we are and can be?
Lauryn Lugo, with twin brothers Andrew and Adrian Nuño explore this question in their drama series Border’d. The series follows three Latine siblings, the Castillos, who return home for their father’s funeral. The journey reveals that the distance they feel between their family and each other is not just physical. Featuring confident, sensitive acting from both established and emerging performers, Border’d screened in multiple festivals, was nominated for Best Drama at Stareable Fest, and was the recipient of several awards including a Telly Award.
The series is masterfully written and directed to communicate the quiet ways people reveal and hide themselves. The second episode, written by Lauryn Lugo, follows the return of the siblings after hearing news of their father’s passing. Grief is notoriously challenging to portray on screen, but Lugo's script says a lot without dialogue. We see the Castillos’ mother sleeping in bed with the empty spot next to her; as she tries to make it tidy, she ends up showing her anger. We see Gabriel (Adrian) in his childhood room festooned with post-its that show his growth edges; on the inside door opening up to the rest of the house he’s written: “take 3 deep breaths, focus, be vocal,” the latter ironic given the weightiness of the moment. At the end of the episode, the four sit down for breakfast with Mexican conchas at the center of the table. Raphael (Andrew) reaches for one and his mom immediately smacks his hand. They don’t eat before saying grace, especially on this day. Border’d is a masterclass in showing not telling the story.
Border’d was inspired by real life experiences.
“I always felt there was a sort of disconnect between who I was, who I grew up to be and the culture that my family grew up on” - Adrian Nuño said. “I really wanted to make a show that was more closely correlated to my experience growing up, not just as someone who was disconnected from the culture, but on top of already being someone who's a person of color. I also, of course, ended up coming out as someone who was queer, so that caused an even bigger disconnect.”
His brother echoed this feeling that the intersections of their identity as queer Latine men who did not grow up in Spanish-speaking communities led to feeling distanced from their culture.
“I felt many times growing up that I had to be sort of the spokesperson for communities that just weren't terribly prevalent where I grew up,” Andrew said, adding “machismo and masculinity complicates Latine identity.”
Nevertheless, the team leaned heavily on their community to get the show done. With a lean $15,000 budget, they raised 80% of it crowdfunding. They spoke about the show with whomever would listen, even Uber drivers.
“That was a lot of just pulling resources from the community, from random people that I had talked to at film festivals, and really trying to show the worth of the show,” Andrew said. “The reason that this show exists is because of the kindness of other people.”
These kindnesses included the restaurant owner that let them film there during off-hours, or their director of photography Daniel Gebert who brought his own equipment. Production manager Thomas Seffernick coordinated complex film days, like the reunion that featured almost two dozen extras. And then there’s the post-production workers like sound designer Henry Hawks and additional VFX/editors who fixed errors, or their composers Emmanuel Roldan and Anthony Esparza turning around new versions of songs in days. Money is only one resource in production, and, for indies like Border’d, is not the only resource you need.
All of this happened before and during the pandemic, which caused additional hurdles. Right before the pandemic, The Castillo matriarch Michelle Jasso, got cast in a national production of a play so they had to shoot her scenes in two weekends. This ended up being fortuitous because they locked her scene before COVID happened. Still, they had to wait to film the rest of the season, and they wrapped the second half right before the second COVID wave. Overall, Border’d was a multi-year process, as the team produced and released the pilot in 2019 before filming the rest of the season and being released in 2021.
In all, Border’d is a shining example of the hard, complex work indie creators perform to tell stories that are never or rarely told on larger platforms!