Producer Gabriela Gonzalez is a champion of the underrepresented. It's why she and her producing partner Candy Ibarra formed Forward Motion Entertainment in 2021. Ibarra is Mexican-American, while Gonzalez is Cuban-American, and, after meeting at a mutual friend's party, the two discovered that they, as Gonzalez puts it in our interview, "had a lot of the same sensibilities in terms of content and the things we wanted to make." They had, in other words, grown tired of the predominantly two-dimensional characters and narratives the film industry was pushing about Latinx people. "It's kind of depressing when you see yourself represented in a way that [makes] you say, 'That's not the richest representation of who we are as a people.'"

Soon after their initial meeting, Gonzalez and Ibarra started working on a project together, Mentiritas (or Little White Lies), which, as reported by Deadline, earned the producing partners a spot in the 2019 Power of Diversity Master Workshop. Hosted by the Producers Guild of America, the annual workshop lasts eight weeks and trains producers from underrepresented communities in everything a film producer needs to know, from pitching to financing, with the ultimate goal of preparing them (and their projects) for the industry. "And then, from there, we thought, 'Why stop here? Let's make the kinds of things that we want to see,'" Gonzalez says of her and Ibarra's decision to make their professional partnership more official. "[We wanted] to see ourselves reflected back to us and also reflected to others that maybe don't understand that within the Latino community."

Indeed, Gonzalez' two new documentaries shine a spotlight on two very different underrepresented communities. Sell/Buy/Date, which premiered at SXSW Film Festival earlier this year, is written and directed by Tony Award-winning actress Sarah Jones and is based on her 2016 Off-Broadway play of the same name. On the Divide follows three Latinx people in McAllen, Texas, each with distinct stories that have one thing in common: a connection to the last abortion clinic on the U.S./Mexico border. "These projects have taught me a lot," she says, which is fundamentally what she hopes for whenever she takes on something new. "I've started production on a new [film] that, again, is going to teach me more, make me uncomfortable [in a good way], make me grow."

Sell/Buy/Date Was Initially Met With Backlash

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Conscious Contact Entertainment

Sell/Buy/Date is unique in that it's a documentary/narrative feature hybrid. Making her directorial movie debut — "We're calling it an 'unorthodoc,'" she says in an interview at SXSW — Jones explores the sex industry, specifically how it intersects with feminism, power, and race. What's more, Jones performs as different characters who hold a conversation about women, sex, and power, ultimately tracing an underlying narrative that she pulls from her own personal life. In addition to Jones' characters, the documentary features interviews with sex workers, experts, and even some famous faces, who share their own experiences on this historically divisive topic. "[It] was appealing to me because I knew it was going to be a challenge," says Gonzalez of the film's hybridized format. "I was going to be uncomfortable, it was going to force me to grow, and then the issue itself — yeah, very much drawn to it. I don't come from that industry. I don't have lived experience, but I know that it's certainly been in the zeitgeist. It has been interesting to me, especially because it does impact people of color primarily, and those are subjects that I tend to be drawn to."

In addition to Jones, two other major names attached to Sell/Buy/Date, this time as executive producers, are the legendary Meryl Streep and Rosario Dawson. "My understanding is that Meryl has been a champion of Sarah's for a long time — I want to say 20-plus years — so when Sarah talked about turning [her play] into a film, Meryl wanted to support her in the best way that she could, and obviously having her name as an executive producer definitely can help open doors."

While this is true, Sell/Buy/Date initially faced backlash when it was first announced, particularly with respect to the concern that sex workers' narratives were being yet again being exploited by filmmakers with no personal experience or ties to the industry. So much so that Laverne Cox, one of the original executive producers, stepped away from the project. "I think it was very legit criticism," says Gonzalez when asked about her thoughts on the matter. "What I thought was really brilliant was that [Sarah and the other producers] incorporated that [criticism] in this hybrid documentary. They reached out and said, 'Hey, we want to include you. We want your voice in this, and you can be as critical as you want to be.'"

Related: 8 Must-Watch Movies From Women Directors

On the Divide Explores Timely Discussions of Reproductive Rights

On the Divide is another one of Gonzalez' documentaries that explores a divisive topic. Making its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2021, where it won Best Doc Feature, On the Divide weaves together three different stories that center around the last abortion clinic on the U.S./Mexico border in the town of McAllen, Texas. While there have been countless movies about politics in the 21st Century, this documentary, directed by Maya Cueva and Leah Galant, is particularly significant as reproductive rights have long been a complex issue, heavily debated and politicized by American government officials alike. Just this week, in fact, a leaked drafted opinion seemed to signal the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Our interview with Gonzalez took place before the leak, but, even then, the producer was well aware of the gravity of the stories being told in On the Divide. "Maya and Leah went in and did the legwork. They spent seven years working on putting this documentary together," Gonzalez says. "What I think they did so well is that there's a lot of humanity in the way these people are portrayed. I think it could have been very easy to make one or two or all of the people involved as almost caricatures. They didn't, and I thought that was really beautifully done in a way that makes it open so that maybe people that tend to be pro-life would be willing to watch this documentary and see the humanity behind it. And vice-versa."

On the Divide is currently available to stream for free on PBS (until May 18, 2022).