Posted by A grandmother’s daily struggle to provide for her family becomes the starting point for a story of childhood vulnerability, silence, and what can remain concealed within familiar routines. Written and directed by Elena Vives, Behind the Curtain has been named Best Short of the Season for the September 2026 competition of the Independent Shorts Awards International Film Festival.
Produced on a budget of approximately $100,000, the 16-minute Colombian film takes place in Sevillano, a small village in Colombia’s Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta. The story follows Alba and her grandchildren, Elías and Dolores, as the demands of everyday survival intersect with an increasingly unsettling pattern at home.
An Ordinary Routine, an Unsettling Pattern
Alba struggles to meet her family’s needs amid scarcity. Whenever she leaves to collect water for their home, she entrusts her grandchildren to their uncle Evelio.
These departures form part of an ordinary household routine. Yet with each absence, gestures, silences, and behaviors begin to repeat themselves, gradually giving that routine a different meaning. Something remains hidden, while the familiar rhythms of family life become increasingly difficult to read with reassurance.
Collecting water establishes the practical circumstances surrounding Alba’s absences. An essential task takes her away from home, placing the children in another adult’s care and making the question of trust central to the story.
Vives grounds the drama in this relationship between necessity and dependence. Alba must leave to provide for her family, but those departures create a space in which something troubling remains beyond her view.
What Remains Unspoken
Behind the Curtain is a raw, honest film with a clear visual sensibility. Its cinematography captures the silences and unhurried rhythms of these lives, placing the characters within a stark, austere environment whose emotional chill becomes increasingly palpable.
The setting gives everyday actions a concrete weight. The need for water, the arrangements for care, and the repetition of household routines establish the conditions within which the story unfolds. Gradually, those same details begin to carry another significance.
Vives allows unease to emerge through observation. A pause, a glance, or a small change in behavior can disturb the apparent familiarity of a scene, inviting the viewer to recognize what has yet to be openly expressed.
The title brings this concern with concealment into focus. A curtain marks the boundary between what is visible and what remains beyond view, suggesting the distance between a household’s apparent normality and experiences that have not been acknowledged.
Performances Rooted in Everyday Life
The performances give the characters the credibility of people whose lives extend beyond the frame. Milagro De Jesús Martínez plays Alba, Diana Sofia Sevillano appears as Dolores, Diego Julián Silva as Elías, and Carlos Rafael Fernández as Evelio.
Their work draws its strength from closely observed behavior. Silences, glances, and small everyday gestures gradually bring what remains hidden into focus, allowing tension to develop within seemingly ordinary interactions.
This naturalism is essential to the film’s emotional force. The characters inhabit the practical rhythms of their lives even as those rhythms acquire an unsettling weight. What they leave unsaid becomes as significant as what they communicate openly.
Together, the performances and cinematography sustain a sense of proximity to this family, asking the viewer to pay attention to details that might otherwise pass unnoticed.
Giving Visibility to Overlooked Lives
According to Vives, her filmmaking aims to bring attention to realities and voices that have rarely been heard, conveying authentic human emotions and amplifying the voices of others while she continues to discover her own artistic voice.
Behind the Curtain places that ambition within a specific family and community. Alba’s struggle to provide for her grandchildren gives the story a material foundation, while the children’s circumstances raise broader questions about vulnerability, care, and the responsibility of adults to recognize what is happening around them.
The connection between visibility and storytelling also runs through Vives’s social-impact work. She collaborates with Tras La Perla, a foundation supporting underserved communities in northern Colombia through initiatives related to education, access to water, and dignified living conditions.
The need to collect water connects an essential part of Alba’s daily life with an area of concern in the filmmaker’s work beyond cinema. Within the film, that necessity becomes inseparable from the family’s circumstances and the story’s dramatic movement.
Elena Vives’s Emerging Filmmaking Voice
Born and raised in Bogotá, Vives is an 18-year-old Colombian filmmaker and artist currently studying film at Chapman University, in California.
Her background spans acting, music, and filmmaking. She appeared as Amalia in Disney’s El club de los graves and has worked on sets alongside international artists and musicians, assisted in directing music videos, and written, directed, and photographed short films.
She has also contributed to Latin Grammy Award-winning albums and serves on the board of DemoLab, an organization supporting pro-democracy movements opposing authoritarian regimes around the world.
These artistic and social experiences inform her interest in overlooked communities, realities, and voices. With Behind the Curtain, that interest takes shape through an intimate family drama whose emotional weight rests on attentive observation.
The film is produced by Isabel Cristina Vásquez, Claudia Elena Vasquez, and Alvaro Salas, with Vives serving as both writer and director.
The Weight of Silence
The honesty of Behind the Curtain lies in its willingness to stay close to a difficult reality, giving small details emotional force without turning vulnerability into spectacle. Its stark visual world and convincing performances allow the story’s troubling undercurrents to emerge through the ordinary texture of daily life.
Vives brings a sensitive, observant approach to material that demands care. The film gives its silences room to register, trusting the viewer to recognize the significance of a glance, a gesture, or a repeated routine.
For its uncompromising honesty, assured visual storytelling, and deeply credible performances, Behind the Curtain stands as the Best Short of the Season for the September 2026 edition of the Independent Shorts Awards International Film Festival.
With this win, Behind the Curtain advances for consideration for the 2027 Annual Awards, where it will be evaluated alongside standout films from the festival’s monthly qualifying rounds for its highest honors.
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