“It’s the story of a Filipino family sitting around the table, and the young daughter asked her dad if there's other Filipinos in New Mexico, and this just gives them an opportunity to springboard into the history of Filipinos and their contributions to New Mexico and to agriculture.”
That’s how producer Lava G. Khonsuwon described her award-winning short film, “Napigsa ti Angin/The Wind is Strong.”
The film earned first place for best overall short, along with awards for best sound and best originality, in the New Mexico Heritage Short Film Contest. Khonsuwon, director Tony Marquez and their team were recognized at the Las Cruces International Film Festival’s Poster Reveal Party on March 6.
The competition challenged filmmakers to tell stories through contemporary filmmaking that captured their cultural heritage and its connection to agriculture. The family-friendly film “The Wind is Strong” does just that, exploring Filipino history in New Mexico.
“I saw the announcement on Facebook and I didn't know there was a heritage museum in New Mexico,” Khonsuwon said. “I'm Southeast Asian and I’m also the New Mexico Asian American Film Festival director, so I am very passionate about advocating for Asian voices. I really wanted to make an Asian story, specifically something Southeast Asian.”
For hundreds of years, Asian Americans have contributed to New Mexico’s heritage, and Khonsuwon saw an opportunity to tell part of that story.
“I have a friend who does a lot of history research on this specific thing, and he's Filipino. He had the research already done. I told him that I think we have a story, so I wrangled my friends. I'm a producer by trade so I produced it, and I made sure I brought in a Filipino writer, director, and actors. The important thing was not just to make it, but I wanted to make it authentic. That’s how it came to be.”
Creating the film on a short timeline—and telling a complete story in just five minutes—proved challenging.
“We really wanted to add a lot of stuff, but we had to keep this simple but creative, so that was always my focus. What can we do with what we have and make a very clean story that has a beginning, middle, and ending?” Khonsuwon said. “So we all worked as a team constantly on the script to review it, make sure it was a cohesive story. We weren't going for longer, it was better. It was quality we were going for, and we realized we could tell it in five minutes.”
Viewers of the film learn that Filipinos came to the United States as sailors and were later recruited into agriculture, including in New Mexico, where they made significant contributions—particularly in carrot farming.
“There’s many Filipinos still in New Mexico, and they are in all kinds of sectors of our state as citizens that helped build this wonderful country and our community,” she said. “I'm not Filipino, I'm Thai, however, I love learning about other people because we have multiple different ethnicities that are within this community. It's good to know who our neighbors are.”
The film’s title stems from the prompt filmmakers were given: “The New Mexico wind carries dust, stories, and sometimes hope.” That idea led writer Josh Domingo to explore themes of migration.
“First how the winds carried all of our ancestors on ships far from their homes, and then how these foreign laborers followed seasonal work to different locations around the country,” Domingo said. “They had to adapt and make new lives and homes. The wind is strong, constant, and brings change. These laborers were also strong, having to endure difficult work, a new country, a new language, new people, and sometimes prejudice. Each carried their own histories from their past, forging new stories and lives in the U.S.”
Khonsuwon said the team was surprised by the recognition, especially given the strength of the competition, and is excited to have the film screened at the festival.
“New Mexico’s history is rich and colorful, just like its people, who continue to move forward,” said actor Anthony Zamora. “To quote Dr. Jose Rizal; ‘He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get to his destination.’ This isn’t just about Filipino history, it’s about New Mexico’s history.”
The second-place film, “What the Wind Remembers,” is a deeply personal family story created by a family. Directed by River Scott, Skylar Rose and Hali Aleczandra, the project also earned best director and best cinematographer honors.
“This film is a short documentary that explores our family's connection to New Mexico and what past generations started and how it's played through to the fourth generation in New Mexico,” Hali said. “The memories that this land holds and it's passed down from generation to generation and how my kids are now the ones that are taking on that torch. It’s a full circle story of my kids growing up in the same house that I grew up in, and we live right next door to my grandma, which is their great grandma, and she's actually living in the home that's featured in the film, and my dad built all that.”
The idea for the film’s title came from conversations between Hali and her 10-year-old son, River, as they reflected on their family’s roots, which trace back to a farm in South Dakota.
“That heart, that soul of working the land carried down to New Mexico,” she said. “This thought of the wind carrying everybody down here and just setting up new routines, that was something we really wanted to emphasize with this film.”
The production blends storytelling with B-roll footage, with a strong focus on the family’s pecan orchard. When they learned about the contest, River immediately knew what story they wanted to tell.
River’s love of film played a central role in bringing the project together. While Hali introduced her children to music, it was filmmaking that resonated most. River has already appeared in several productions.
“His love for acting just kind of came about because he's so vibrant and has so much energy,” Hali said. “We had tried so many different things and that was just something that really stuck.”
In the end, the project was about more than the finished product—it was about capturing real moments. River wanted the conversations with his grandmother to remain unscripted.
“To me it was more about capturing that real essence, that real moment, and having this for the kids to look back on and having their kids be able to see it too,” Hali said. “It's a big deal.”
“Back Burner,” directed by Kcenia Gwaltney, finished third in the competition.
The winning films will be screened at the Las Cruces International Film Festival from April 8–12.
