Producers/Editors: Vicky Funari, Jennifer Maytorena Taylor
Screenwriters: Vicky Funari, Paulina Cruz Suirez, Jennifer Maytorena Taylor
Director of Photography: Marie-Christine Camus, Music Pauline Oliveros

A decade in the making, this "non-fiction feature" is a modest triumph of biographical filmmaking that combines narrative and documentary techniques and succeeds in the experiment of enlisting its subject as an active participant in the creative process. As a child in rural 1950s Veracruz, Mexico, Paulina (played in flashback sequences by a trio of young actresses) is traded for land rights by her parents and exploited by a town boss, surviving only through sheer force of will. Paulina returns years later to confront her tragic past, collaborating in a filmed version of her odyssey constructed by Funari, whose parents employed Paulina as a maid when the filmmaker was a child. Paulina is a bold and innovative story of dignity and endurance. - Eddie Cockrell