Lindsey Cordero is a Mexican filmmaker based in Brooklyn. She previously co-directed the TV documentary “Firmes, Mexicans in the Bronx” and produced “En el Séptimo Día.” “I’m Leaving Now (Ya Me Voy)” is Cordero’s feature-length directorial debut.

“I’m Leaving Now (Ya Me Voy)” will premiere at the 2018 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival on April 28. The film is co-directed by Armando Croda.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

LC: “I’m leaving Now (Ya Me Voy)” is an intimate portrait of Felipe, a Mexican undocumented immigrant who has been living in Brooklyn for almost two decades, and who struggles to return home to a family he doesn’t really know. As he prepares to leave New York, a series of events start to unfold.

Felipe’s troubled because his youngest son, Cesarín, has never called him “father,” and his oldest son, Alejandro, confesses he has a huge debt with the bank, and is in danger of losing the family’s home. Feeling lonely and betrayed by his family, an unexpected love affair makes him rethink the true meaning of family and responsibility.

Throughout the documentary Felipe is confronted with many difficult questions: does his family really want him to come back home? Is Felipe a respected father figure, or is his family using him for the money?

W&H: What drew you to this story?

LC: Armando and I would often see Felipe in the neighborhood pulling his cart filled with cans and bottles wearing a faded velvet Mariachi hat with falling sequins, singing popular Mexican songs. Also being from Mexico, we became friends, and were always intrigued and captivated by his charisma and sense of humor.

Felipe would see us with our camera gear and ask if we could do a video to send to his family so they could see what his life is like in New York. We did a video of Felipe singing “Serenata Sin Luna” and uploaded it to YouTube for his family to watch, and started getting acquainted with them.

At first it never occurred to us to do a longer project with Felipe because every time we saw him he would tell us he was going back to Mexico the next month or so. Weeks, months, and years passed, and we kept running into him.

Eventually we asked Felipe what was delaying his trip back home, and that was the question that led to this project: will Felipe ever be able to go back home? We immediately saw that this was not only a question that sat at the very center of Felipe’s story, but also at the center of every undocumented worker struggling in often faraway lands to make a better life for the families back home.

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?

LC: I hope that through the story of Felipe audiences will start to have a better understanding of the emotional toil and sacrifice that is at the heart of the undocumented workers that harvest our vegetables, cook our food, build, and clean our cities, and take care of our kids and elderly.

That audiences might reflect on themes and questions confronted by these workers on a daily basis — about the nature of home and belonging, the true personal costs incurred to make a life for themselves, and for their families back home. Economic progress is possible but what is the emotional toll they must pay in return?

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

LC: From the very beginning Armando and I knew we wanted to make an observational film with no interviews, but because this is our first feature documentary, we also wanted to experiment with different techniques and approaches during the production process.

During the edit, one of the biggest challenges we faced was trying to find a unified style and approach for the film. At one point we even considered including the filmmaker — myself — in the film, interacting with the film’s subject — Felipe — but I am very glad we didn’t because Felipe’s story was strong enough to stand alone and speak for itself, and adding these elements took away from the power of his story.

We are also a very small team, and in the initial stages we edited various versions of the film to raise money and grant applications. At one point I felt my vision was contaminated and restricted to the same sequences and structures so it was very refreshing to collaborate with our writer, Josh Alexander, who structured the story, and made us fall in love with the material again, and see the magic and potential in scenes we would have never considered.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.

LC: I’m a location sound recordist, and Armando is a DP. We have our own equipment so it was very easy for us to pick up and film any day of the week. That helped a great deal in keeping the production costs low. We were able to take the film all the way through production, filming, editing, and post-production with very limited equity funding, relying on in-kind services, and free funds raised through family and friends.

In 2015 we were awarded with $6,000 by the Princess Grace Foundation Film Honorarium. With that money we bought a couple of hard drives for the film, and put the rest in a bank account, and never touched it until we were applying to festivals and in post-production.

In 2016 the project won the Docs Forum Pitch Competition at DocsMx [International Documentary Film Festival of Mexico City], and we were invited to participate in the upcoming DocuLab at the 2017 Guadalajara International Film Festival where we won in-kind color correction services at Cine Color in Mexico City.

This film was made on a very limited budget with a lot of in-kind services, and support of other film professionals who fell in love with Felipe for all the same reasons we did.

W&H: What does it mean for you to have your film play at Hot Docs?

LC: We are thrilled and honored to have our film play at Hot Docs. This is very important for us because it’s our first feature film, and to have it participate in the Mexican sidebar — along with other great Mexican filmmakers — is very rewarding.

There is also a big Mexican community living in Toronto, so we hope our film will resonate with them. And we are also very excited to share our film with audiences in Toronto, and listen to their impressions and feedback.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

LC: I once saw Alan Berliner at the Lincoln Center presenting his documentary “First Cousin Once Removed,” and I remember him saying: “The only way to good ideas is through bad ideas.” This has stuck with me forever, and taught me not to be afraid to express my ideas — no matter how good or bad they are, it helps the creativity flow.

I guess then a bad piece of advice would be, “That’s a bad idea; it’s not going to work.” Sometimes you have to fight for your bad ideas, and other times you just gotta let it go.

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?

LC: I constantly remind myself: never doubt yourself, and go for it no matter how hard it seems, and how long it takes. You didn’t come this far to only get this far.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

LC: Last year I saw Afgan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat’s film “Wolf and Sheep.” It’s ethnographic approach really resonated with me. It’s a hybrid docudrama infused with magical realism of local folk tales about a group of shepherd children living in a place out of time, in the mountains of Afghanistan.

It was very powerful for me to witness the children’s spontaneous conversations, free of taboo because of their age; [it] reveals so much about the social dynamics and gender roles in their community. The visual poetry of this remote yet contemporary shepherd community — its loose and revealing narrative threads, and slow yet immersive pacing are all very inspiring to me and my approach to documentary.

W&H: Hollywood and the global film industry are in the midst of undergoing a major transformation. Many women — and some men — in the industry are speaking publicly about their experiences being assaulted and harassed. What are your thoughts on the #TimesUp movement and the push for equality in the film business?

LC: I think the movement is very timely. It’s important to see more and more women perform in roles where we don’t usually see ourselves — to stop thinking it’s unusual, and to start feeling it’s only natural.

It’s also empowering to see that the movement has transcended the Hollywood glamour and elitist groups to make this a universal struggle that includes all working women from all diverse backgrounds and ethnicities.

It’s an issue that both women and men need to think about, talk about, and together plan for more meaningful and inclusive solutions.