The Avon Lady
2023 · 13m · USA
Directed by Carolina Espiro
Rosa, a 65-year-old Chilean immigrant in Los Angeles, finally faces her fear of speaking English by becoming an Avon Lady. She's a fantastic failure until an eccentric customer shows her it takes more than English to make a sale.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A heartwarming immigrant-finds-confidence story is exactly the kind of premise that makes programmers nod approvingly—which is precisely why it doesn't interest me, until you realize the film's actually about how assimilation is a con game where the real sale is learning to con yourself.
Espiro locates herself in a lineage of immigrant cinema that reaches back through Moffat and Cheung, but what distinguishes this is the formal restraint: she lets the comedy breathe without winking, and trusts the editing to hold the space between embarrassment and dignity.
The casting of her own mother isn't just biographical gold—it's the decision that unlocks everything, because that accumulated lived experience means Rosa's hesitations read as textured and earned rather than performed, which is what transforms a premise about English lessons into something about identity that actually lands.
Festivals
- LA Shorts International Film Festival 2023, Best Comedy
- Lighthouse International Film Festival 2023, Special Mention, Best Comedic Short
- New York Latino Film Festival 2024
- Newport Beach Film Festival 2023
- Burbank International Film Festival 2023