Niñxs: Frameline 2025 Completion Fund Spotlight

Niñxs
Directed by Kani Lapuerta · Mexico 🇲🇽 / Germany 🇩🇪 · 86 mins

At the foot of Tepozteco, a sacred hill that governs the winds and fertility, lies the small town of Tepoztlán. Against this backdrop, 15-year-old Karla’s body and mind are undergoing a revolution. While Karla navigates her transition, director Kani Lapuerta shapes eight years of footage into a joyful film, as they handle the vagaries of a rural trans adolescence together. Niñxs will make its world premiere this month (in April) in the International Feature Film Competition at the Visions du Réel Film Festival in Nyon, Switzerland.

Kani Lapuerta (he/they) is a trans filmmaker and researcher with a Master’s degree in Documentary Film from the University School of Cinematic Studies at UNAM (Mexico). His work navigates projects and spaces that challenge hegemonies around gender, heterosexuality, and embodiment, opening new possibilities for imagining through audiovisual storytelling.

In 2023, he wrote and directed La UNAM sin límites, a dissident miniseries produced by UNAM and Procine CDMX, which sheds light on the sex-gender dissent narratives within the main university in Mexico. In 2021, he premiered La fuga, a short documentary exploring masculinity and the prison experience. The film debuted at the Morelia International Film Festival and earned awards at several international festivals.

Kani also conducts filmmaking workshops in institutions and cultural centers across Mexico and abroad, sharing his passion for audiovisual language as a tool for creation and transformation.