U.S. HISPANIC Versión en español
Becoming Vera, The Debut Film by Spanish Director Sergio Vizuete, Will Premiere At The 42nd Miami Film Festival
Maribel Ramos-Weiner| 4 de abril de 2025
Becoming Vera tells the story of a young woman who plays Latin jazz — a piano prodigy — trying to build a career
Spanish director Sergio Vizuete will be presenting his debut feature Becoming Vera at the Miami Film Festival on Wednesday, April 9.
“The Miami Film Festival is an incredible platform to introduce these young actors and share a story that is both personal and powerful. Becoming Vera is about self-discovery, resilience, and the search for a sense of belonging, and I couldn’t be more excited for audiences to experience it,” said Vizuete.
Becoming Vera is a coming-of-age drama that introduces a new generation of acting talent, exploring themes of self-discovery, resilience, and the search for identity. With a fresh and immersive narrative, the film captivates audiences and marks the beginning of promising careers for its young cast.
Vizuete explains that Becoming Vera tells the story of a young woman who plays Latin jazz — a piano prodigy — trying to build a career. “She’s trying to survive all kinds of challenges along the way. In the film, Vera has just turned 18 and left the foster care system. She’s basically on her own, trying to make her dream come true despite all the obstacles,” he says.
He adds that the film is very meaningful to him, “because it’s, in a way, the dream of someone who wants to make it in the arts. All the obstacles we encounter, especially as immigrants coming to this country in search of those dreams, we face countless challenges that have nothing to do with creativity or learning the craft. That’s the figure of Vera: she embodies the obstacles I’ve faced throughout my career, which is why it’s such a personal and powerful story.”
Spanish director Sergio Vizuete
Vizuete comes from the advertising world, where he’s directed TV campaigns for the Los Angeles Lakers, Real Madrid, Walmart, the Los Angeles Dodgers, among others.
“I’ve been in advertising for many years, and about five years ago I started making small forays into film — one of them was the short film *Night Shift*, which screened at the Burbank International Film Festival in California. That’s where I met the people who ended up investing in this movie,” he says.
FILMING IN RECORD TIME
Thanks to his experience working with a skilled team and his background in production, Vizuete was able to shoot Becoming Vera in just 12 days in Miami.
“I was lucky to have worked as a commercial director for years, and that allowed me to bring in highly professional friends and collaborators for the project — people I’ve worked with many times on set. That helped us complete the film in 12 days, which, as you know, is very little time,” he explained.
He noted that while the production didn’t receive tax incentives, it did get support from several organizations.
“We had the support of Voices of Children, an NGO in Miami that helps children. They let us film in their offices for free — about 20% of the movie takes place there. Miami Dade College let us shoot the audition scene in the theater at their North Miami campus,” he said.
Becoming Vera was produced by Jiarui Guo (who served as executive producer on The Brutalist) and Sergio Vizuete. The executive producer was Vince Jolivette.
Vizuete estimates that the film will make the festival rounds for about six months, after which they’ll start negotiating a theatrical release.
A CAST OF FUTURE STARS
The cast includes emerging young talents: Raquel Lebish as Vera (Filipino and Puerto Rican heritage); Nicolás Pozo as Jake (Ecuadorian-American); Mikaela Monet as Ellen (Venezuelan); and from the U.S., Brandon Williams as Daniel, Gabriel Diehl as Héctor, Philip Andre Botello as Ariel, and Stuart G. Murphy as Anton.
He emphasized the film’s standout casting process, which involved about 4,500 actors.
“The casting process lasted four months. It was a low-budget film, so we had to work with fresh faces. I made it my mission to work with the best unknown actors in the U.S. The cast is stellar — they’re the next generation of actors. We feel like we’ve done what The Breakfast Club did in its time — discovered actors who are going to be the future of Hollywood, with long careers ahead. This won’t be the last time we see them on screen,” he noted.
NEXT PROJECT: THE CUBAS PLAN
Vizuete’s next project is The Cubas Plan, based on the true story of Juan Ignacio Hernández Nodar, a Cuban-American baseball agent who in the 1990s helped smuggle baseball players out of Cuba and find them spots on Major League teams.
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