Vuelve a mi – Missionite honors family and home in short film

In her short film Vuelve a mi, Andrea Flores tells the story of her experience with losing a parent in her childhood home.

When she set out to make the film, the Missionite wanted it to be an homage to the city’s past. Instead, she created a more personal piece about her late mother, Alejandra Molina-Flores, and her final months in hospice care.

Flores shot the film at her family home in Mission, compiling hazy scenes of the house, her mom’s belongings, a digital clock showing late night and early morning hours and spliced footage of old family videos from when Molina-Flores was younger. She wanted to create the feeling of the muddled state between waking and sleeping — la madrugada, Flores said.

“It’s about how difficult it was to exist in the house, knowing that this was happening and there was really nothing we could do about it. And just how heavy that was because we’ve lived there our whole lives,” the 25-year-old said. “So it was just very difficult to see someone that’s always been the pillar of your home and just been there for everything, suddenly not be able to do the things they used to do, and then also getting used to how the house was changing.”

Making Vuelve a mi was emotionally difficult, Flores said. However, she was able to learn about understanding grief and the guilt that comes from losing a parent.

“It kind of goes into also appreciating all of the memories that exist in that house,” she said. “And although there are those not-so-good memories, there’s also years and years of things that have happened that are very beautiful and very nice to look back on now.”

Flores created the film as a final project for her artist residency with ENTRE, a film center and regional archive based in Harlingen. They screened Vuelve a mi at their end-of-year party, but soon, it will be available on the ENTRE website for public viewing.

When Flores pitched her idea for a film, she originally wanted to make a piece about Mission and how it has changed, connecting it to the changes in her personal life. Her love for the city came from her mom, who would tell stories of her youth while cruising around Mission with Flores and her sisters in the family van. To learn more about Mission’s past, Flores conducted a memory session at Speer Memorial Library, where locals could swap stories about the town’s history. But when it came to putting the film together, she wasn’t quite sure how she would portray her original idea on screen. Eventually, she leaned into telling her more personal story.Although the work from the memory session did not directly make it into Vuelve a mi, Flores said she developed an even deeper appreciation for the city and the people who have stories to tell.

“They might be like random stories that they think, ‘Oh this is not relevant to anyone but me.’ But I think, because of my perspective, and now being really appreciative of every story my mom told me about Mission, I love to hear from other people too because it means something,” the filmmaker said. “I guess it could be easy to say, ‘Whatever, it’s just some random story that happened to you in like 1996.’ But I think it’s special and I like to be able to look back.”

During the filmmaking process, Flores connected with local DIY archivist and historian Irma Flores Lopez and said she was inspired to get involved in preserving Mission history.

“It’s really special and it makes me really happy and excited to know that things are not just going to fade away and no one’s going to do anything about it,” she said. “People actually care.”

Flores also created an art installation for the film screening. It consisted of her mom’s belongings, photos and items from her home. On a box TV, a montage played of home movies from bailes at her grandma’s house in Alton, underlaid with shots of downtown Mission and a playlist of songs honoring her mom in the background. The montage will also be available on the ENTRE website.

“Whenever I think back to my childhood, that’s what I think of,” Flores said, “just times cruising around in my mom’s van in downtown Mission.”