Guanajuato production begins on documentary about Sandra Cisneros

Filmmaker Soco Aguilar has begun production in Guanajuato on the first feature documentary about writer Sandra Cisneros, with a planned 2028 release. The film follows Cisneros from Chicago to San Antonio and San Miguel de Allende, tying her life story to her family’s roots in Guanajuato.

Why it matters: - The documentary puts Sandra Cisneros’ cross-border identity at the center of a feature-length film for the first time. - The project also positions Guanajuato as both the setting and emotional core of a story that spans Mexico and the United States. - The film could widen attention on Cisneros’ influence in literature, education and cultural debates around bilingual, bicultural identity.

What happened: - Filmmaker Soco Aguilar began production in Guanajuato on Sandra Cisneros: Ni de aquí, ni de allá, a feature documentary about Sandra Cisneros. - The film is Aguilar’s first feature documentary and is scheduled to premiere in 2028. - The story follows Cisneros from Chicago to San Antonio and San Miguel de Allende. - The production has already shot in the United States and Mexico.

The details: - La casa en Mango Street, published in 1984, has sold more than eight million copies and has been translated into more than 25 languages. - The book is required reading in U.S. classrooms and, according to PEN America, is among the most frequently censored books in those classrooms. - Cisneros’ other acclaimed works include Caramelo and El arroyo de la Llorona. - Cisneros is a MacArthur fellow and received the 2015 National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama at the White House. - The film’s title draws on the Spanish phrase used for people who belong to two places but are fully claimed by neither. - Aguilar said the film is meant to show “a woman who always lived by her own rules.” - The film traces Cisneros’ family roots to Guanajuato, where her grandparents Eleuterio and Romualda fled Loza de Barrera in Silao in 1913 during the Mexican Revolution and later settled in Chicago. - Cisneros became established as a writer in San Antonio. - In 2013, 100 years after her grandparents left Guanajuato, Cisneros moved to San Miguel de Allende, about 100 kilometers from Loza de Barrera. - Travel + Leisure readers have repeatedly chosen San Miguel de Allende as the best city in the world. - Cisneros is currently in San Miguel de Allende writing her next novel, Infinito, and the film follows her back to Loza de Barrera. - Aguilar said Guanajuato is “one of the main characters” in the film, not just a backdrop. - The production has recorded more than 50 hours of footage in the United States and Mexico. - Footage includes behind-the-scenes material from The Glimmerglass Festival in New York in July 2025, when La casa en Mango Street premiered as an opera. - The production also captured scenes in Chicago and Urbana, where Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker awarded Cisneros the state’s highest honor, the Order of Lincoln. - The film will include dreamlike sequences inspired by Mexico’s Golden Age of cinema. - One planned sequence at Guanajuato City’s Teatro Juárez will show Cisneros as the opera singer she once dreamed of becoming. - Aguilar will blend documentary footage with family archives, 2D animation and stop motion. - Aguilar was born in Mexico City and spent much of her childhood in Celaya, Guanajuato. - Aguilar produced the animated feature La Leyenda de la Nahuala, which won the 2008 Ariel Award for best animated feature and recently completed a decade on Netflix. - Universal Pictures distributed Aguilar’s other two features, Nikté and Todo incluido. - Aguilar met Cisneros 30 years ago in San Francisco through her mentor, the late documentary filmmaker Lourdes Portillo. - Aguilar also worked with Portillo on El diablo nunca duerme, which the Library of Congress added to the National Film Registry in 2020. - The New Yorker described El diablo nunca duerme as “compelling and psychologically complex” and later included it among the “films that shaped the art of documentary.” - The production has support from Guanajuato’s Fund for Cinematic and Audiovisual Activities, the Guanajuato Film Commission and IMCINE’s project development stimulus program. - A teaser will debut in the first week of December, and early access will go to people who register at socoaguilar.com.

Between the lines: - The film frames Cisneros’ biography as a story about migration, belonging and return, not just literary achievement. - Aguilar’s use of animation, family archives and stylized sequences suggests a hybrid documentary approach aimed at memory and myth as much as straight biography. - The focus on Guanajuato gives the project a strong regional identity while connecting it to a widely recognized U.S.-based literary career.

What's next: - Production will continue in Guanajuato and other locations tied to Cisneros’ life and work. - The teaser is set for the first week of December. - The finished documentary is expected to premiere in 2028.