Plot

CAER is a collaborative experimental documentary using fictional and nonfiction filmmaking methods to express the struggles for justice of transgender Latina women working in the NYC sex industry.

CAER is an experimental and collaborative documentary combining fiction (ethnofiction) and observational nonfiction methods to include people whose lives are portrayed and who are directly concerned in all phases of its production.

The documentary is the result of the collaboration between Nicola Mai and the TRANSgrediendo Intercultural Collective, a grassroots nonprofit organization defending the rights of transgender Latina migrant women in Queens, New York City.

CAER is also a tribute to the work and legacy of Lorena Borjas, the mother of these Latin transgender women living in Queens, who was one of the first victims of COVID-19 in New York in March 2020.

The story and the roles in the film were written and played by members of the TRANSgrediendo Intercultural Collective who were also involved in the editing of the film.

They were written collaboratively through several writing workshops allowing the people directly concerned to express their real individual and collective experiences of migration, sex work, and exploitation.

Rosa and Paloma, the two protagonists, fight transphobic violence, persecution from the police and defend their cases of trafficking in an increasingly anti-migration political environment in the US.

Together with their friends and colleagues they also assert their identities creatively during a drag show that allows them to counter their marginalization and stigmatisation.

Although Paloma and Rosa's story is fictional, it expresses both creatively and factually the life events and lived experiences of violence, trafficking, sex work, and discrimination of the people who collaborated in its creation.

CAER includes several nonfiction debate scenes in which the film protagonists talk about important issues concerning the trans Latina population in Queens such as police persecution, the difference between sex work and trafficking and the lack of occupational alternatives to sex work.

In the film, the fiction story is framed within the filming of the real feedback screening of the film to the members of the TRANSgrediendo Intercultural Collective who collaborated in its making ahead of the final editing, during which they discuss their involvement and the story and characters they wrote in relation to their personal and collective experiences.