MICKEY - Director Dano Garcia

Director Dano Garcia's latest film, MICKEY, centers on Mickey Cundapí (she/her), known artistically as Mis$ Mickey, a trans multidisciplinary artist who, alongside García, uses play and performance to reimagine the past and inhabit the present. Over the past decade, Mickey has navigated her transition within the conservative context of Mazatlán, a city known for its vibrant carnival traditions yet marked by persistent homophobia and transphobia. Mickey and García first met at age 14 as students at the same Catholic school. Even then, Mickey's makeup and performances during mass scandalized priests. In a deeply collaborative process, the two revisited archival material from their childhood friendship, reconstructing a shared journey of gender transition and resilience while creating space for broader queer community support through the film itself. Drawing from youthful footage, artistic reenactments, and intimate encounters, Mickey moves between tenderness and rage, transforming memory into an act of liberation. The film approaches the past not as fixed, but as fluid—a space for reimagining selfhood beyond punishment or shame. Director, Co-Producer and Co-Screenwiter Dano Garcia joins us to talk about her latest work, the 2026 SXSW Film Festival, Global Audience Award winning film, MICKEY. About the filmmaker - Dano García (they/them) is a multi-award-winning documentary filmmaker who studied at the National Film and Television School (NFTS) in London and ENAC (formerly CUEC) at UNAM in Mexico City. Their debut feature, Kings of Nowhere (2015), won the Global Audience Award at SXSW, the Grand Jury Award at Full Frame, the Golden Eye at the Zurich Film Festival, and Best Documentary at Morelia, among other honors. The film screened at Sheffield Doc/Fest and MoMA's Doc Fortnight, received a Cinema Eye Honors nomination, won the Cinema Tropical Award for Best Documentary Director, and was named one of the year’s best films by Sight & Sound . In 2016, they directed Unsilenced , a New York Times Op-Doc about a Mexican activist murdered on-air while hosting a radio show for displaced residents. Her latest film, MICKEY won the Global Audience Award at the 2026 SXSW Film Festival.