Who we are
Southwest stories, told from the inside
Acequia Lateral makes films about the American Southwest: its high desert and river valleys, its small towns and big skies, and the families, languages and histories that shape life here.
The Southwest has been filmed plenty of times as a backdrop. We're interested in the people standing in front of it. The best stories here are already being told on porches, at kitchen tables and along the ditch banks, and our work is to bring them to the screen without losing what makes them true.
Our crew
Made here, by people from here
We build our productions around a New Mexico–based crew. Our people know how the light moves across a mesa at five o'clock, which roads wash out in monsoon season, and how to show up in a community with respect.
Hiring locally keeps the work, and the money it brings, in the places where our stories come from. It also makes for better films. A crew that lives here sees things a visiting one would drive right past.
The name
Why an acequia
For centuries, New Mexico villages have shared water through acequias, hand-dug ditches that every family helps keep running. Each spring the community cleans the ditch together, and the water is divided so every field gets its turn.
A film crew works the same way. Nothing gets made without many hands sharing the work. The lateral is the branch that leaves the main channel and carries the water to a single field, and that's what we try to do with every story: bring it where it needs to go.
- la·ter·al noun
- A branch ditch that carries water from the main acequia, the madre, to an individual field.
Get in touch
Have a Southwest story to tell?
We'd like to hear about it, whether it's a project, a collaboration or a story from your own family. New Mexico crew who'd like to work with us are welcome to write too.
hello@acequialateral.com