FORTALEZA
Can you pass on love without passing along the pain?
A Film by Stephen Cervantes
FAMILY
HISTORY
“I wanted to show my daughter the place our family calls home. What I found was a house built to be a cage.”
Fortaleza is a bilingual experimental documentary feature about a Panamanian-American filmmaker who returns home with his family, only to find that the person he most wants love from is the one most committed to withholding it.
Completed principal photography · Work-in-progress submitted to the Guadalajara International Film Festival · Post-production partner: Meseta Post (Sound of Metal, Carlos Reygadas)
PLOT &
THEMES
Fortaleza follows a filmmaker, who sets out to document his infant daughter’s first trip to Panama, his family’s ancestral homeland, intending to create a time capsule of culture, memory, and beauty. But as the trip unfolds, what begins as a heartfelt journey quickly shifts, as his grandfather’s controlling and volatile behavior starts to dominate the experience. Dangers of the land, both real and imagined, awaken Stephen’s own demons, causing him to question what kind of father he’s becoming.
Set against the backdrop of a sprawling, isolated estate built by his grandfather decades earlier in Panama’s rural Chiriqui province, the film becomes an intimate portrait of generational tension, inherited trauma, and the complex ties that bind family across time and borders.
TRT 75 MINS | EXPERIMENTAL DOCUMENTARY | 4K UHD
THEMES: Love & boundaries, Masculinity & Emotional Abuse, Memory vs Reality, Legacy & Identity, Spiritual Longing
PRODUCTION
/ TEAM
Much of Fortaleza was filmed solo, with Cervantes capturing footage intimately and improvisationally—often wearing a GoPro on his chest and carrying his own camera and audio gear through every moment of a real-life family trip. This immersive, guerrilla-style filmmaking allowed for raw, unfiltered capture of emotionally charged moments as they unfolded in real time. Select sequences were produced in partnership with Oso Content, a Panama-based production company, whose collaboration helped ground the film in the cultural and geographical textures of the region.
Stephen Cervantes is a Panamanian American filmmaker and graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, dedicated to telling emotionally grounded, visually bold stories that center emotional rawness and perspectives from the margins. His award-winning short films, including Big World and Tortoise, have screened at festivals like Indy Film Fest, Ashland Independent, and Lone Star Film Fest (winner, Best Director), gaining recognition for their intimate storytelling and singular cinematic language. His micro-docs for Son of Man cider helped define the brand, by educating audiences about the rich cultural heritage of the Basque people in northern Spain.
Fortaleza, his debut feature, draws from his personal and cultural background to explore themes of generational trauma and racial identity. Currently in post-production, the film continues his mission to bring nuanced and unconventional Latino narratives to the screen, beyond stereotype.
In addition to his narrative work, Cervantes has applied his editorial sensibility to high-profile commercial projects, editing content for brands like IMDb, Nike, and Hexclad. His work reflects a strong command of story and crafting meaningful, resonant experiences across mediums.
He is currently based in Portland, OR, where he is developing future projects that aim to expand Latino representation in film and television, including a documentary project on Brazilian musician, Baden Powell.
STEPHEN
CERVANTES
Fortaleza belongs to a growing movement of emotionally raw, visually poetic indie films that blur the line between documentary and narrative—films like The Rider (Chloé Zhao), All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson), and Aftersun (Charlotte Wells). Like these, Fortaleza draws power from its intimacy and restraint, inviting audiences into a deeply personal story with universal resonance.
In a landscape where audiences are increasingly drawn to films that feel honest, grounded, and emotionally textured, Fortaleza offers a fresh Latino perspective with global emotional stakes. Its stripped-down production only enhances its authenticity, creating a visceral sense of closeness that is both artistically bold and commercially resonant within the arthouse and streaming markets.
MARKET
VIABILITY
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