The Hummingbirds

GALLERY

ABOUT THE FILM

Director/Writer: William D. Caballero

Genre: Digital Media

Program Length: 10 Minutes

Premiere Date: Monday, November 18, 2019 on PBS.org and the PBS Video app

As Brandon, a young boy with long hair and feminine features, explores his own sexual and gender identity, he is oblivious to the plight of David, his father and diabetic dialysis patient. After Brandon’s mother leaves the two to go to work, Brandon’s father graciously confronts him and asks about Brandon’s orientation. Brandon ignores him, as David starts to feel ill.

David vanishes, leading Brandon to experience a flashback that took place years ago when a healthier version of David underwent his first day of dialysis treatment. He witnesses his transformation into “Hummingbird Man,” a winged superhero. David tells him that only by adapting the core traits of the hummingbird (small size and immense strength) was the only way he could survive dialysis treatment. He also tells Brandon that he knows of his secret queer identity, and that he too is a hummingbird.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

William D. Caballero (Director/Writer)

William D. Caballero is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker, composer, violinist, and multimedia storyteller. Born in Coney Island, New York and raised in North Carolina, Caballero obtained the Bill Gates Millennium Scholarship in 2001, and returned to New York City where he graduated from Pratt Institute (BFA Digital Art, 2006, Minor in Art History ) and New York University (MA The Arts and Humanities in Education, 2008), graduating Magna Cum Laude and Cum Laude, respectively.

Caballero’s directorial debut came in the form of a feature length autobiographical documentary entitled AMERICAN DREAMS DEFERRED, which focused on the diverse health, financial, and social difficulties facing his Puerto Rican-American family. This cinema-verité film was selected for the NALIP (National Association of Latino Independent Producers) Latino Producers Academy, eventually receiving the first annual HBO-NALIP Documentary grant. Five years after its conception, it went on to have a national television premiere on PBS on December, 2012. Post-premiere, he has screened the documentary at over 40 American universities.

In 2010, the Apollo Theater commissioned Caballero to create SPEAK! SO THE WORLD WILL LISTEN! UGANDA, a multimedia advocacy concert for 20 musicians. Shot on location in Uganda, the project features the audio testimony of war orphans and gay rights activists, blending music, visuals, and documentary, which later premiered at the Apollo. In 2012, he completed SEED STORY, a macro short film featuring a cast of hundreds of one-inch tall plastic hand-painted figures, which debuted the following year at the Slamdance Film Festival, and later became a Vimeo Staff Pick. In 2013, Caballero was selected for the Aljira Emerge program (in partnership with Creative Capital), a strategic career management and exhibition platform for emerging artists. Later that year, he gave two keynote speeches at the annual Bill Gates Leadership Conferences in Washington, DC and San Jose, CA as an ‘alumni guest-of-honor.’

Working in the field of 3D printed short films, his recent achievements include GRAN’PA KNOWS BEST, an interstitial series based on his short film, HOW YOU DOIN’, BOY?, which was licensed by HBO LATINO in 2015. Two seasons of the show are currently viewable on HBO GO, HBO NOW, and HBO ON DEMAND. In September, 2016, Univision debuted his latest web-series, DREAMER GENERATION, which features the stories of members of the Dreamers’ Movement, shot using 3D scanned/printed miniatures. In 2017, Caballero’s latest short film, VICTOR AND ISOLINA, debuted at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, and the Museum of Modern Art (Documentary Fortnight).

Caballero’s latest web-series STORYBORED USA, a web-series aimed at empowering diverse young people to tell their stories through creative arts and media, launched in January 2018. The show features 3D printed miniatures of Caballero as the show’s host, and was funded by Latino Public Broadcasting. Recently, in November 2017 Caballero was one of ten filmmakers selected for the SUNDANCE NEW VOICES LAB, held in Los Angeles, California.