• Fourth edition of the Migrant Voices Today Challenge, organized by the San Diego Latino Film Festival and the San Diego Union Tribune.
• In the 2020 and 2021 editions, projects carried out in Tijuana won.

Three short films made in Tijuana will be presented in the Migrant Voices Today competition organized by the San Diego Latino Film Festival in conjunction with the San Diego Union Tribune, informed the Secretary of Economy and Innovation, Kurt Honold Morales. Through the Baja Film Commission of the Directorate of Creative Industries, it was reported in this fourth edition of the challenge, the call was expanded to receive projects from anywhere in the world that exemplify experiences of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

“Viajeros Ocultos” by Eduardo Ortiz, “Goodbye, Chapadream” by Luis Gutiérrez and “Chaparral” by Yolanda Morales and Jorge Nieto, were selected and a panel of experts including cross-border academics, filmmakers, journalists and photographers will choose the winners. All cinematographic genres and formats participated with a maximum duration limit of five minutes.

For Luis Gutiérrez, director of “Goodbye, Chapadream”, the experience of filming this short film was a great learning experience: “every time they went to the chaparral, families came to ask for help, advice, or just wanted to feel heard for a moment. Everyone was nurtured with hopes in the camp to improve their lives, it was there that I understood that Tijuana is a great chaparral”.

According to producer Renee Czarina, "Hidden Travelers" is a documentary about "the testimony of the last hours of a young Honduran in Mexico before crossing into the United States"; Eduardo Ortiz, the director, affirms that it is a call to empathy and about the non-existence of the so-called 'American dream': "It was quite a journey where all of us in the production contributed from our different areas of work to raise this voice. We follow Christian, 19 years old from Honduras, who expresses his last moments in Mexican territory and how the places have been transforming him”.

Also, “Chaparral” was a project that was documented for almost a year, “from the first day the migrants arrived, we went almost daily. They gave us a great lesson, since we sought to make visible and humanize the migration of women, children, people in a context of mobility who are always looking for an alternative to improve their lives. Migration will happen today and always despite everything,” director Yolanda Morales commented on the short film “Chaparral.” "'El Chaparral' was a great sociological laboratory that showed us many stories of people with problems, displaced by violence, but who will always find an alternative," she added.

The Migrant Voices Today competition was won in 2020 by “El Camino de la Cocina” by Israel Becerra and the following year by “Defend the Asylum” by Andrés González, both students of the CUT University of Tijuana; the latter subsequently participated in the Querétaro International Documentary Film Festival (DOQUMENTA), International Social Film Festival (FICSO), Humano Film Festival and in the selection of the International Migration & Environmental Film Festival of Canada. The San Diego Latino Film Festival will take place from March 10 to 20, 2022 in person at various venues including the Westfield Mission Valley shopping center; and also they will have a digitally available selection.