In the documentary film, Backside, director/ filmmaker Raúl O. Paz-Pastrana (Border South), has lovingly composed a poetic meditation about the immigrant workers who care, feed, and tend to the million-dollar race horses at the Kentucky Derby racetrack.

Because of its historical association with royalty and nobility, horse racing is often called “the sport of kings.”In the horse racing caste system at the top are the horses, jockeys, owners, and gamblers, followed by the trainers, and beneath them, the workers who work for the trainers.

Pastrana skillfully uses a minimalist, cinema vertité approach to his film to imbue the workers with an aura of grace and nobility of their own.

There is no celebrity narrative voice over or mood setting, ethnically tinged music with a guitar or piano. There are no long-winded testimonials detailing aspects of the story.

Instead, Pastrana slowly lets the story, with virtually no dialog, pictorially unfold and reveal itself naturally by observing the workers going through their daily routine in quiet elegance. Often, the scenes that show the workers doing their jobs are framed and composed in a painterly fashion that evokes Van Gogh’s representations of working-class people in his timeless and iconic artwork.

The deep emotional attachment depicted in the film between horse and worker is one of the more touching and effective storylines of the film. In one scene, a curious wife asks her husband why he gives the horse candy.

“Because he’s my friend,” he whispers to his wife.

In the opening scene, we watch as a horse is being taken onto a ramp from a trailer. In the final scene, the horse is led up a ramp into a trailer to travel south. The scenes act seamlessly as cinematic bookends for the whole documentary.

Pastrana, a Mexican immigrant from Chihuahua, Mexico, now living in Denver, Colorado, is intimately knowledgeable about the immigrant experience in America and the untold value immigrants bring to the U.S. economy. In this unfortunate era of ICE raids and a Mass Deportation agenda, Backside is a gentle but persuasive reminder of the important and often unknown contributions of the immigrant community to America.

The Kentucky Derby Race is often described as the most exciting two minutes in sports.” Pastrana’s moving documentary, Backside, shows us the thousands of hard-working, tireless, dedicated  hours that go into making those “two exciting minutes.”Backside premieres on PBS, Monday, April 13. Check your local listing for times.

Independent Lens: Backside (2026) can be watched primarily on PBS.org and Free PBS App . It is also available for on-demand streaming for PBS Passport members and will have broadcast airings on various local PBS stations and the World Channel.

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CODA, the family drama starring Emilia Jones and Eugenio Derbez, and Jockey’s Clifton Collins Jr. took top awards at the Sundance Film Festival this year.

Under the direction of Sian Heder, CODA took four awards, including the most coveted U.S. Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award. It also won the Directing Award and the Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast of a dramatic film. 

Sundance, the preeminent independent film fest which usually takes place in Park City, Utah, was held Jan. 8 through Feb. 2 with virtual screenings due to the COVID pandemic and in-person screenings in dozens of American cities where permitted by local health regulations.

Derbez took to social media to share the news about CODA. “!Viva México!” he posted on Twitter responding to congratulatory tweets in Spanish. He also noted in a video post that CODA is a “small independent film produced with a low budget” and “based on true stories.” Derbez praised the professional deaf actors featured in the film, in which Derbez plays the music teacher to a young woman whose parents are deaf. 

CODA was acquired by Apple for $25 million, a record amount paid for a Sundance film. This is Heder’s second full feature. Her first, Tallulah, screened at Sundance two years ago. CODA was produced by the U.S.’s Vendome Pictures and Picture Perfect Federation along with Switzerland’s Pathé Films.

Collins Jr. took home the top acting honor for his starring role in director Clint Bentley’s drama Jockey.   Collins Jr. plays an aging horse jockey dreaming to win one last championship when suddenly his life is unsettled by the arrival of a young man claiming to be his son.

Jockey is the first full feature film by director Clint Bentley, who co-wrote the story with Greg Kwedar and shares producing credits with Kwedar and Nancy Schafer. Brazilian filmmaker Adolpho Veloso did the cinematography. The film was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for worldwide distribution.

Collins Jr. has also gone by the artistic name of Clifton Gonzalez-Gonzalez in honor of his grandfather Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez, a Mexican-American actor from Texas. Collins Jr. is a seasoned actor whose credits include the Oscar-winning films Traffic and Capote and blockbusters like Star Trek and Pacific Rim. His performance in the TV series Thief earned him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination in 2006. He was also guest starred in the episodes ofThe Event and most recently in Westworld.

Other award-winning Latino at Sundance.

Natalia Almada received the Directing Award for U.S. Documentary for Users, which follows a mother who feels she is competing with computers, electronic cribs, and other technologies in raising her son. This is Almada’s second Sundance prize in the same category—the first one was for El General in 2009.

Puerto Rican-born and raised filmmaker Rebecca Adorno shared the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award  U.S. Documentary for Homeroom, which centers on teens coming of age at an Oakland high school as part of the class of 2020 in such a traumatic year. Adorno shared the award with her co-producing colleague Kristina Motwani. The doc was directed by Peter Nicks, who also co-produced with Sean Havey.

Early on during the festival, there were other awards that went to Latinos. 

Nicole Salazar took the Amazon Studios Producers Award for Nonfiction for the documentary Philly D.A. which follows a Philadelphia district attorney determined to progressively revolutionize that city’s criminal justice system. The doc is directed by Yoni Brook and Ted Passon.

And the Mexico-USA co-production Hijo de Monarcas (Son of Monarchs) won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize for portraying a scientist in a major role. It tells the story of a New York-based lepidopterist who, upon his grandmother’s death, returns to his natal Mexican town nestled in the monarch butterfly forests of the state of Michoacan. Directed by French-Venezuelan filmmaker and biologist Alexis Gambis (The Color of Time), the drama stars Tenoch Huerta Mejía (Narcos: Mexico, Tigers Are Not Afraid).

Featured Top Photo: Clifton Collins Jr. the lead actor in Jockey by Clint Bently. (Photo by Adolpho Veloso/Courtesy of Sundance Institute)

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