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"I was the only person who could direct this film": Eva Longoria Presented FLAMIN' HOT at the 21st FICM

When Eva Longoria got a screenplay that told the story of how Richard Montañez, a Mexican-American janitor working for Frito-Lay, developed a new flavor that would change the history of snacks, she knew she had to be the director of the film. 

Although the odds seemed stacked against her, Longoria managed to direct the project. The result of her efforts is Flamin' Hot, presented in a special screening at the 21st Morelia International Film Festival (FICM).

"My agent told me 'you're never going to get that job, there are 30 other directors who want it' [...] I felt I was the only person who could direct this film. A chicana had to do this, a chingona. And I am a chingona," Eva Longoria said in the Q&A after the screening.

In conversation with the audience, which included singer and actor Miguel Bosé, the film's cinematographer, Federico Cantini, and FICM's president, Alejandro Ramírez Magaña, the director of the documentary La guerra civil (2022), spoke about her personal motivations for making this film.

Eva Longoria and Miguel Bosé

"I am Montañez, I am the Chicana that everyone told, ‘You can't do this, you can't be a director, this job is not for you because you are Mexican […]' The reason to make this movie was that Hollywood always defines how heroes look like, and they never look like us."

"I wanted to make a love letter to the Mexican community, especially the cholos."