con·tact
minorcinema@yahoo.com
Francisco Romero is an independent filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, California. Raised in the working-class neighborhoods of Pico-Union and South Gate, Romero draws from personal experience to explore themes of memory, identity, and place through both experimental and narrative film. His films often engage with community, cultural history, and the porous boundaries between fiction and documentary.
He holds a BFA in Film and Electronic Media from California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), and an MFA in Film and Video Production from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Romero continues to develop his filmmaking practice while working in arts and education.
SELECT SCREENINGS & EXHIBITIONS:
Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, CA), Los Angeles Filmforum (Los Angeles, CA), Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, NY), AVE. 50 Gallery (Highland Park, CA), Barnsdall Art Park Foundation (Hollywood, CA), pain sugar gallery (Riverside, CA), Espiral Film & Video Collective (Los Angeles, CA)
CURRENT & RECENT WORK
notas de la América Mexicana
2025 | USA | Various Formats | Color & Black and White | Sound
A collection of notes taken on America. Shot across various formats—including Digital Video, Mini DV, Super 8, and 16mm film—this ongoing project weaves together fragmented portraits of American life.
Part 1 – The Unwanted Americans & Our Anger, Unresolved. A personal account of growing up in Los Angeles from the 1970s to the present, with a focus on the enduring presence of anti-Mexican and anti–Mexican American rhetoric. Blending personal stories, local histories, and political reflection, the film interrogates America’s legacy of racism and its systemic exploitation of immigrant communities.
frag·ment
2020 | USA | Digital | Color | 17:46 min.
A quiet, interwoven drama about two couples whose lives blur across the lines of class and labor — Gabino and Claudia, cook, clean, and fix for their employers, Tara and John — revealing the intimacies, tensions, and unspoken dependencies that bind them together. Their relationship lays bare the legacies of racism, colonialism, and the quiet violences that persist in the everyday.
Featuring: Jasmine Contreras, Juan Mares, Andrea Monte Warren, Eli Lee
2020
2018 | USA | Digital | Color | Sound | 28:18 min.
A short film that follows Oscar, a man scraping together what he can in hopes of reuniting with his young daughter. Set over the course of a single day on the outskirts of Los Angeles, the film quietly observes the routines, setbacks, and small victories that define life on the margins.
Featuring: Eli Lee & Matthew Clair.
UXMAL
2017| USA | Digital | Color | Sound | 38:46 min.
Prologue to Uxmal —
Jesse and Cleo meet as strangers on an adult website, their connection born in anonymity. Over time, what begins as a transactional exchange gives way to something more intimate and unexpected. But just as a fragile bond begins to form, Cleo vanishes without a trace, leaving Jesse suspended, adrift, unraveling, and consumed by the need to understand what went wrong.
Featuring: Andrea Monte Warren & Joey Puerto.
ARCHIVE
City of Quartz
2015 | USA | Digital | Color | Sound | 38:46 min.
City of Quartz follows Jesse as he begins his freshman year of college. Yet, despite this new chapter, life feels strangely unchanged—he still lives at home, commutes to campus, and spends time with his old high school friends.
Set in 1992, in the immediate aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, City of Quartz offers a distinct take on the coming-of-age story, exploring what it means to grow up when everything around you feels stuck in place.
Featuring: Joey Puerto, Magaly Castallenos, Sandy Martinez, Oscar Basulto, Melody Parra & Dianne Ruiz
Always Now
2008| USA | Digital | Color | Sound | 38:46 min.
Rodrigo’s life drifts through fluorescent days and muted nights—an office drone numbed by routine and the humdrum loops of domestic life. That monotony is shattered by a mysterious pirate radio broadcast from the city’s edge. The voice belongs to Ulises Fregoso—anarchist, revolutionary, artist, poet, myth, prophet, and full-time troublemaker.
His call to action sends Rodrigo stumbling into a labyrinth of absurd encounters, half-baked revolutions, and fleeting glimpses of freedom. Blending absurdist comedy with political fable, the film reimagines the revolutionary dream for the fractured landscapes of the 21st century.
Featuring: Lenin Pacas, Dani Piro, Melbourne Delaney.
Untitled Film
2006 | USA | Video | Color | Sound | 38:46 min.
A film exploring the quiet unraveling of a young couple. As Ron struggles with the fundamentals of daily life, Vanessa carries the weight of holding them both together.
Featuring: Ron Trejo
Una Esquina Del Mundo
2004 | USA | 16MM Film| B&W | Sound | 60.00 min.
An experimental hybrid film, Una Esquina Del Mundo, follows a young artist as he retraces his parents’ journey while coming of age in a world that feels both inherited and uncertain.
Featuring: Ron Trejo, Francisco Romero Sr. & Hermila Romero.
Huntington Park Christmas Parade
2004 | USA | Video | B&W | Sound | 18.39 min.
A video portrait of the Annual City of Huntington Park Christmas Parade, capturing the rhythms, faces, and festive spirit of a longstanding community tradition. Influenced by the observational approaches of Direct Cinema and Cinéma Vérité, the film lingers in moments both grand and intimate, offering a window into celebration as collective expression.
April, 09 2002
2002 | USA | Video | B&W | Sound | 17:13 min.
April, 09 2002 is short experimental narrative that follows Victor, an aspiring writer, over the course of a single day as he drifts through moments of solitude and observation, searching for inspiration and meaning in the everyday. Blending documentary and narrative elements, the film offers a quiet meditation on creativity, routine, and the inner life.
Featuring: Victor Ruiz, Francisco Romero Sr. & Hermila Romero.
timeline
2001 | USA | Video | B&W & Color | Sound | 1:37 min.
A short video that chronicles my father’s immigration to the United States. Told through fragmented memories, it traces his journey across decades—his work, wages, family life, small victories, and quiet defeats. The piece paints a portrait of resilience shaped by labor, sacrifice, and the pursuit of something better.
auto -retrato
2001 | USA | Video | B&W & Color | Sound | 6:21 min.
auto - retrato is a short experimental video shot during a 2001 visit to my parents’ home in South Gate, California. Set in an 841-square-foot house along the industrial corridor of Southeast Los Angeles—the site of my upbringing—the video is a meditation on longing, remembrance, and the search for belonging. Through quiet observation, it explores themes of family, home, and the politics of place.
(self - portrait)
filtro
2000 | USA | Video | B&W | Sound | 3:45 min.
An intimate, yet matter-of-fact video portrait in which I interview my father as he changes the oil on his Honda Civic. Our conversation drifts between memories of immigrating to the United States, his early jobs, and the everyday rhythms of his current life.
(filter)
long distance runner
1999 | USA | Super-8 | B&W & Color | Sound | 3:52 min.
A short experimental film that follows a man who is a prisoner of his geography—running in circles, bound by borders he didn’t choose. Trapped in the loop of routine and landscape, he chases freedom along a path that never changes.