Every life carries a story that deserves to be told. And some of them don't just stay with you, they change how you see the world.

MICKEY, a documentary on Mickey Cundapí, who popularly goes by Mis$ Mickey, traces the last ten years of her life as she navigates her transition in a town shaped by cartels, carnival culture, and deeply rooted homophobia. But this is not just 'her' story. It unfolds through the eyes of Dano García, her friend, confidante, and roommate, also trans, and also the director, who found the courage to come out through Mickey’s fearless selfhood.

Now that the documentary has been declared a winner at SXSW, both Dano and Mickey sat down with Netflix Junkie to talk about their deeply personal and inspiring film. The duo reflected on how the documentary grew from an intimate visual collage into a message meant for the world.

Hriddhi: Dano, you have known Mickey since you were kids in Catholic school, long before either of you were thinking about international film festivals. You’ve said that you were already making small visual projects together on your phones and laptops, just as a way to build a community in your own apartment.

Can you take me back to that first moment when you hit 'record'? And did you have any idea back then that you were starting a decade-long archive?

Dano: When we first moved in together in our Mexico City apartment, I remember throwing one of the mattresses into the middle of the living room and lying together to talk about everything: stars, dreams, memories. I later got Mickey a diary so that she could write all of her thoughts, and that later became the first glimpse at the “structure” of the film.

Then we launched a campaign to be able to fund the “acted” sequences of the film, which meant involving members from Mickey’s family (like her dad, for sequences like the one involving the testosterone droplets), and that way what we had previously talked about started to take form.

For that, the fact that we had known each other for so long and that we had cultivated proximity in such a safe place for both of us was key to crafting the film in a much more intimate way than a traditional documentary crew.

Hriddhi: Would you describe MICKEY as a documentary, a video essay, or a hybrid art film, and does that categorization even matter to you?

Dano: I think we agree more with your “hybrid film” definition. We always wanted to emphasize the hybrid nature of the montage because memory, to us, is non-linear. Mickey once told me that I had a really bad memory, but that just went to show how many repressed memories and ghosts from my past I was trying to block.

So, with the use of mixed formats, we wanted to resemble the idea of fluidity, to echo that rhythm of water. We also always knew that we wanted to resemble webcam footage because, for us as trans people, the use of social media and avatars is key for exploring our identity. By mixing many different formats, we also achieved an exploration of the past through non-punitive lenses.

Hriddhi: The film has been tagged as a “visual collage” ever since it started getting its first reviews. How does sound function against the visual collage; does it unify fragmented images, or does it further destabilize perception?

Were there moments where you intentionally created dissonance between audio and image to reflect an identity conflict?

Dano: I think the big presence of visual metaphors boils down to what we said before about memory as water. We wanted images to also be charged with that sound of the waves of Mazatlan (the place where we grew up), which is so close to the sea. The fact that all of our memories are so connected to the sound of the sea made us and our sound designer, Christian Girauda, also want to symbolize something deeply rooted in Mexican culture, which are obsidian mirrors (espejos de obsidiana).

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These are polished discs of natural volcanic glass that were historically significant in Mayan culture and that, to us, speak directly to the reflection of introspective journeys—to connecting with those memories and stories that are deeply rooted in our interiority.

Hriddhi: For the audience, it feels like you welcome them into this journey. How did you create all the layers to the film that make us feel like we are going into that journey with you two?

Dano: I think the word you used, “journey,” describes it pretty well. We wanted to make sure the film felt like a space where the audience could truly get to know us.

Hriddhi: The use of gaming characters and avatars, and those glitches in the film, in a way suggested that 'online' lives are just as real as our 'offline' ones. Do you think traditional documentary filmmaking is 'outdated' in that sense for a generation that grows up on Discord and social media sites?

Dano: I think this film reflects something I understand as “transcinema”: creating through hybridity and from the margins. As trans people, we are always creating from the margins and with the tools that we can find, however limited they are. If we only have webcams and social media, that is what we will use. Even if we are being filmed through security footage, we will hack that and use it to our advantage.

Mickey: I would also note that it is not really about the documentary genre, but on how we use it. And there is a space for everyone if we dare to create it.

Hriddhi: In an era of 4K and high-definition, why was it important to keep the 'grain' and the 'pixels' of the early 2010s? Like, do you think that pixelation actually created a layer of intimacy that 4K lacked?

Dano: Mostly, the pixels resemble the “error.” The idea of trial and error has allowed us to achieve the most freeing way to tell our story. In a world filled, as you said, with an AI-logic of images being fully polished and perfect, we think the visuals that speak best to our experiences are those that appear pixelated.

Hriddhi: Mickey, you have a very “diva” presence online (in the best sense possible). Since you are also a performance artist, how did you and Dano work together to decide who would call the shots on what?

Mickey: When I first started writing the journal, I had no idea how the film would look or what we were going to put together with these collective words. But Dano and I were always talking, and that conversation was logic, so it was always a collective process of figuring out together what felt best and more organic to tell our story.

Hriddhi: Dano, in the film you state that your coming-out process happened very close to meeting Mickey. How much of the 'idea' for this film came from your own need to see a story about trans identity?

Dano: Well, that is just how Mickey is [laughs]. She is so unapologetically herself and so in touch with her identity that it is contagious for all of us who have the opportunity to know her to feel inspired to be more authentic. 

Hriddhi: After a decade of documenting this journey and now sharing it at SXSW, is there a specific message or feeling you and Mickey hope the audience takes away, especially for those who might still feel 'pixelated' or invisible in their own lives?

Dano/Mickey: Above all, that there is a space for everyone and that there is power in embracing your own story. And that working together as a community and a collective is much more powerful and effective than working by yourself on your healing process. Much faster, too. 

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What did you think about the award-winning "transcinema", Mickey? Let us know in the comments!