Synopsis:
It’s the end of spring in Boston, Massachusetts. 16 year-old América Hart Campos (Kristen González) is looking forward to the end of school.

With summer approaching, América has two issues, or so she thinks, she hates school and her aunt Carolina’s (Gy Mirano) alcoholic husband, Joey (Gilberto Arribas). She passes the days shoplifting, hanging out with her friends and trying to avoid Joey.

But after a life-changing event, América, whose Spanish is limited, is sent to Buenos Aires, Argentina to live with her reclusive and anti-American grandmother, Lucía América Campos (Ana Maria Colombo).

In Argentina, América struggles to find her place with a grandmother she has never known and to hold onto a friendship with Sergio (Nicolás Meradi), a neighbor twice her age.

Cast:
Kristen Gonzalez
Gy Mirano (Call Me / Miami Vice-TV Series)
Ana Maria Colombo (Sangre / El Árbol azul / Como pan caliente)
Gilberto Arribas (See Saw)
Jaime Sanchez (The Wild Bunch / Carlito's Way / Bad Lieutenant)

Drama | 2007 | 98 minutes | Color | Stereo | 16:9 Aspect Ratio | HD CAM | NTSC
In English & Spanish with subtitles

WHAT THE PRESS IS SAYING:

“The film is beautifully shot, and the screenplay is a marvel of minimalism in which every word matters. As América, newcomer Kristen Gonzalez gives an utterly compelling performance, her smoldering temper perfectly offset by the bone-weariness portrayed by veteran Argentinean actress Ana Maria Colombo. If the story has a somewhat predictable arc – two prickly, difficult women gradually come to care for each other – it's handled gracefully and with infinite subtlety. ….the film is a cliché-free zone, and a richly nuanced character study."

--- Sarah Coleman, THE INDEPENDENT

“How América deals with the bleakness around her is the central question of 3 Américas. I admire director Cristina Kotz Cornejo for refusing to present a feel-good solution on the order of other ethnic teenage girls with big challenges films like “Real Women Have Curves” and “Bend it Like Beckham.” In the end, América grows and changes but her problems are by no means solved.”

“América’s struggle is a compelling and thought-provoking one. It’s brave to tell the story of what happens when you yank a girl away from everything she knows into a situation so foreign and trying that it transforms the very meaning of her name.”
--- Lisa Phillips, “51%” WAMC Northeast Public Radio

“Refreshingly, the director makes no attempt to tell us what to feel and there are moments of unadulterated tension where we become voyeurs eavesdropping in on some achingly intimate family moments…."
--- Bryan Fox, RealTVFilms.com

“Cornejo has produced a thoroughly modern anti-heroine in América --independent, self-reliant, and resourceful, but also facing her own vulnerabilities; it’s a moving and impressive work."
--- Michael T. Garcia, The University Times/CSULA

Bio: CRISTINA KOTZ CORNEJO (Writer/Director)
Cristina was raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina and the United States. 3 Américas, 2004/05 Sundance Institute’s Screenwriter’s Lab semi-finalist, marks her feature film debut. 3 Américas is the recipient of 2004 & 2007 Moving Image Fund Grants from the LEF Foundation and was selected for the prestigious Sundance Institute’s 2004 Independent Producer’s Conference as well as the NALIP Latino Writer’s Lab. In 2005 she was selected to participate in the Independent Feature Project/NY Director’s Lab with 3 Américas.

Cristina’s short film, The War That Never Was/LA Guerra Que No Fue (2004) has screened in 11 countries and at over 20 film festivals and is distributed by Ouat! Media of Toronto, Canada and VOY Pictures of Los Angeles. Her short film, The Appointment (1999), developed with Spike Lee and Nancy Savoca while a student at NYU, was awarded a prestigious Warner Bros. Pictures Production Award and 3 NYU Craft Awards and is distributed by Urban Entertainment in Los Angeles.

Cristina received her M.F.A. from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and a BA from the University of Southern California.

Cristina is currently an Associate Professor of Film Production at Emerson College.