A sumptuous look at an underrepresented community and region, Finlandia focuses on a tightly-knit group of headstrong Muxes in Oaxaca. Already under a number of pressures, these individuals — culturally recognized as representing the third gender — find their lives further complicated by Marta, a curious Spanish tourist whom they welcome into their chosen family. In actuality, Marta is a fashion designer who’s been tasked to research their vibrant fashions for a new line. As Marta begins to question her mission after forging a meaningful connection with the Muxes, an earthquake strikes the region — rattling the community and uprooting years’ worth of emotions that have been buried beneath the surface.

With his first narrative feature, director Horacio Alcalà finds fertile cinematic ground in the Southern Mexico region, capturing its desert and urban landscapes with a bracing poeticism. Even more provocative is his harvesting of boundaries and borders of all kinds: cultural, political, and in its finest moments, personal and emotional.