Nicole Otero
WAIT FOR NIGHT
Production financial grant for splinter unit.
About the project: A speculative image tries in vain to capture the cumulative effect of an increasingly harsh climate across a landscape. Two siblings return to their late father’s house for the last time, but they encounter an already unfamiliar environment in the place that holds their past. An old neighbor emerges, an enduring witness to the land, and tries to describe what’s happened to their way of life. WAIT FOR NIGHT is a triptych of loss in America’s Southwest.
About the filmmaker: Nicole Otero is a filmmaker currently based in California. Her narrative debut film SLIP was acquired by Kino Lorber/Dedza in 2021, as part of an anthology highlighting emerging and underrepresented directors. SLIP is now streaming on Criterion Channel. Her next film, WHEN THERE WAS WATER, premiered at BAMcinemaFest in New York. She is a recipient of NALIP’s 2022 Latino Lens grant for her upcoming film, WAIT FOR NIGHT, which is a spiritual proof of concept for her debut feature project currently in development. Across all her work, she is interested in expanding film’s visual and sonic possibilities towards a haptic, embodied cinema.
Otero has also served as an editor to several films for major museum exhibitions including MoMA, The New Museum and the Hammer Museum. She edited THE AFRICAN DESPERATE, a feature film that premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) and New Directors/New Films 2022, now distributed by MUBI. Additionally, she was a screenwriter on CIVIC, which played IFFR and Clermont Ferrand in 2023.