Work samples

  • Agencia

    Agencia is an essay film that juxtaposes twentieth-century government agency films made about Puerto Rico alongside poetic documentation of the agency and strength of the Puerto Rican people. A story told in three parts, Agencia emphasizes the personal embodiment of agency in a propagandized state while rejecting ad nauseum depictions of Puerto Rican resilience and suffering over the course of a mediated colonial century.

  • Desidentificación

    Desidentificación is an essay film that examines the earliest filmic narratives about Puerto Rico in a self-reflexive exercise based on José Esteban Muñoz’ concept of disidentification, a practice of re-performing power as queer embodiment.

  • Ausencia

    Ausencia is an essay film that explores the concept of horror and gender within Puerto Rico’s film and colonial history.

  • Bmore Boricuas

    Bmore Boricuas is a documentary short that chronicles the community-driven archival work of Tola’s Room, a Puerto Rican home museum and cultural space in Baltimore City. The film follows the Bmore Boricuas Project, an initiative launched in 2021 to document and celebrate the histories of Baltimore’s Puerto Rican diaspora—from the 1800s to the present—through oral histories, personal artifacts, and creative expression. Bmore Boricuas offers a powerful reflection on migration, identity, and the enduring legacy of Puerto Ricans in Baltimore, using storytelling as a means of both preserving history and honoring the contributions of Baltimore’s Boricua community.

About Maillim

May Santiago is an independent culture and film archivist. Her work focuses on Puerto Rican cinema and micro-cultures, particularly at the intersection of horror, queer, and feminist nodes. She is also a filmmaker with films that have screened at Final Girls Berlin Film Festival, Ax Wound Film Festival, Panama Horror Film Festival, Wench Film Festival, and New/Next Film Festival. She has been named a rising star in the essayist community by British Film Institute every year since 2023.… more

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Desidentificación

Desidentificación is an essay film that examines the earliest filmic narratives about Puerto Rico in a self-reflexive exercise based on José Esteban Muñoz’ concept of disidentification, a practice of re-performing power as queer embodiment.

  • Desidentificación
    Desidentificación

    Screenshot from Desidentificación (2024)

  • Desidentificación

    Desidentificación is an essay film that examines the earliest filmic narratives about Puerto Rico in a self-reflexive exercise based on José Esteban Muñoz’ concept of disidentification, a practice of re-performing power as queer embodiment.

Ausencia

Ausencia is an essay film that explores the concept of horror and gender within Puerto Rico’s film and colonial history.

  • Ausencia
    Ausencia

    Screenshot from Ausencia (2024)

  • Ausencia

    Ausencia is an essay film that explores the concept of horror and gender within Puerto Rico’s film and colonial history.

Bmore Boricuas

Bmore Boricuas is a documentary short that chronicles the community-driven archival work of Tola’s Room, a Puerto Rican home museum and cultural space in Baltimore City. The film follows the Bmore Boricuas Project, an initiative launched in 2021 to document and celebrate the histories of Baltimore’s Puerto Rican diaspora—from the 1800s to the present—through oral histories, personal artifacts, and creative expression. Bmore Boricuas offers a powerful reflection on migration, identity, and the enduring legacy of Puerto Ricans in Baltimore, using storytelling as a means of both preserving history and honoring the contributions of Baltimore’s Boricua community.

  • Bmore Boricuas
    Bmore Boricuas

    Zines created by me for one of the documentary shoots of Bmore Boricuas. 

  • Bmore Boricuas
    Bmore Boricuas

    A production Polaroid from one of the guerilla shoots of the documentary, Bmore Boricuas.

  • Sneak peek of Bmore Boricuas project

    Sneak peek of in-progress cut of Bmore Boricuas, screened at The Parkway in June 2025.