Spotlight: Last Call

By Monica Garrido Huerta, Tricia Hagoriles & Heath V. Salazar

(10-minute read)

Tell us about Last Call and what inspired you to create the project.

A huge inspiration behind the creation of Last Call was a craving for diversified QTBIPOC representation on screen, behind the scenes and in our audience. As a QTBIPOC production team on a film with a primarily Latine cast, we’ve seen the ways industries across the board can regard our community as a monolith and use it to place us in positions of competition with one another rather than recognizing the strength of diversity. With this film, we wanted to showcase the storytelling that becomes possible when our community’s nuances are embraced and celebrated.

One of the ways this was done was through language. Having a primarily QTBIPOC cast and crew was important to us, so we also wanted to consider the diversity within our audience. Our writer, Monica Garrido Huerta, intentionally wrote the script in Spanglish for a principal cast whose first language is Spanish. It was important to her that the flow of their dialogue not only be a genuine reflection of the way language lives within our community, but to develop a script that could then reach audiences like fellow Queer immigrants who share those experiences.

One of the ways she centres this point of view is by writing jokes that will land for people at different times depending on whether or not they’re Spanish speakers. It’s a little wink that allows them to know the film is made with them in mind, while also being a conversation starter – an intentional way to spark conversation outside the movie theatre around who got what joke at what time, who understood specific references, and more. Because the goal for our team isn’t just representation, it’s community connection.

But community isn’t always neat and tidy. Community can include everyone from your best friends to your exes, and we all know breakups can sometimes feel like the end of the world. So, we thought, what if it was ACTUALLY the end of the world? And what if we took the amazing, award-winning, highly skilled artists we admire around us, whom we seldom get to team-up with because of the logistics of tokenism, and we created jobs that highlighted their jaw-dropping skills? AND! What if we created a story that held our complexities, turned our dread into zombies, and offered our community Queer heroes? … and what if we did it in Spanglish!

Submissions to the Queer Your Stories Short Film Competition were reviewed by a jury of ACTRA Toronto’s outACTRAto Committee members and two senior programming staff from Inside Out. How did it feel to have your film selected as the winner by a jury of your peers?

It’s such a dream, not only in terms of gratitude knowing what an immense opportunity the outACTRAto Committee makes possible for Queer filmmakers through the Queer Your Stories contest, but particularly with a project that carries so many of our values as filmmakers. Last Call presents our community in ways that don’t always get recognized as important – from our language to our humour to our methods of storytelling – it’s a very meaningful thing to feel seen by peers whom we admire. For them to read this script and to be so enthusiastic about it.

outACTRAto and Inside Out have been hugely impactful for both of us. It’s because of the members on their teams over the years that we’ve gotten to see the possibilities in our futures, to imagine new possibilities, and to know there are so many people in our industry who care deeply for our community and are willing to stand up for it. For those people to read Monica’s words and to hear about what our team wanted to create through this film and to believe in it – it’s a real honour.

Thanks to the generous support of our sponsors, the Queer Your Stories Short Film Competition provides the winner with financial and in-kind support. Tell us about what it was like working with our sponsor partners to bring your short film to life.

The teams behind the Queer Your Stories sponsors were absolutely wonderful. It takes so much to create a film, so their financial and in-kind support made a huge difference on a technical level as well as creatively.

Their support made it possible for us to create so many jobs for QTBIPOC filmmakers while being able to provide them with top-tier equipment. The artists we worked with from the sponsor teams were phenomenal. They were so generous with their creativity, and it was honestly really moving to sit-in and watch the impact each department made on the storytelling for the film. Last Call wouldn’t be the same without their generosity, and we’re not only thankful but so excited to work with them again in the future.

What was it like working with the ACTRA Toronto Members on the film?

Last Call is premiering at the 2025 Inside Out Toronto 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival, Canada’s largest 2SLGBTQ+ film festival and the single largest promoter and exhibitor of 2SLGBTQ+ content in Canada. How do you think it will feel to have your film screen publicly for the first time and when/where can our readers watch the film going forward?

Last Call having its world premiere (Thursday, May 29, 2025, at 7:00 p.m. at the TIFF Lightbox Cinema 1; available to stream online from 12 p.m. on May 30 to 11:59 p.m. June 1, 2025) at the 2025 Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival is incredibly special to us. This festival is where our writer (Monica Garrido Huerta) and our director (Tricia Hagoriles) first met and have since developed a close friendship and creative relationship. Our co-producer (Heath V. Salazar), on the other hand, has been out since the start of their career and transitioned publicly throughout it, but for years was too shy to come see films at the festival alone. Getting to premiere a Spanglish film at Inside Out together, that’s been created alongside and for our community, is a dream come true.

Last Call holds community at its core. It’s a celebration of the everyday people we hold dear and who inspire us even when they don’t know it’s happening. The film itself was literally brought to life thanks to our cast, our crew, our donors, our outACTRAto Committee members, our sponsors, our collaborators, our best friends, our queer families, our partners, our venue, our queer bartenders, our elders, our beloved Lesbians, our drag kings, our exes, the list goes on. It’s a privilege to get to say that, to get to have and be a part of community. Getting to share this premiere with them – whether through their work on the film, their presence in the audience, or just through the ways they live with us every day – es una maravilla.

Our team will now be looking to bring Last Call to even more festivals so it can continue its quest for community connection, Lesbian praise and zombie fighting… IN SPANGLISH!

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