Queer Latinx short film Chulo premieres today with its world premiere screening

A queer Latinx short film about longing and the cost of hiding premieres today

Chulo is a gay Mexican love story set in a working-class Los Angeles taqueria. Written and directed by Alex Orea, known as Azar Lux.

In a working-class Los Angeles taqueria, a young Mexican-American cook sees a new hire walk in. Something shifts. The romance that follows is unspoken and brief, and it costs him something.

The title says it plainly. Chulo, in Latinx queer slang, is a term of desire. Director Alex Orea, who makes the film under the name Azar Lux, describes it simply: a gay Mexican love story that is intimate, human and real. Something we do not often see portrayed in media. That absence is precisely the point. Queer Latinx stories set in working-class spaces, told by working-class Latinx crews, from the inside rather than the outside, remain rare in independent cinema. Chulo does not announce its politics. It just makes the film.

The full logline is precise about what the story does: a young Mexican-American cook experiences a fleeting, unspoken romance with a new hire that forces him to confront queer desire, masculinity and heartbreak. The film is not about coming out. It is not about resolution. It is about what it costs to want something you cannot say out loud in a community where masculinity has its own specific weight.

The film was shot at Señor Sparza Tacos and Tacos El Atacor in Los Angeles. Real places, not a set. The crew is almost entirely Latinx. Azar Lux makes their debut here as writer, director, editor and composer. Cinematography by Walter Diaz. Starring Germain Arroyo and Christian Face alongside Yanin Loza, J. Stir, Sayle Myler and Emlyn Cole. The film was funded through Kickstarter by a community that backed it before a single frame had been shot.

Chulo premieres today, 11 July 2026.