Documentary showcasing work of local midwife to screen at Watsonville Film Festival next week

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Fifteen years ago, Consuelo Alba chronicled the life of Sergio Castro, a healer in Chiapas, Mexico, in the documentary “El Andalón,” which led her to travel around the world to share her work.

Since then, Alba’s time has been dedicated to growing the Watsonville Film Festival, which she co-founded in 2012, and supporting up-and-coming local filmmakers. However, after volunteering at a local midwife’s healing clinic for farmworkers, Alba was inspired to return to making films after more than a decade. 

Alba co-directed “The Long Labor” with her friend Brenda Ávila-Hanna. The film follows certified nurse-midwife and Indigenous healer Maria Ramos Bracamontes over the course of three years, and documents her work through Campesina Womb Justice, a mutual aid project in support of women farmworkers. 

The short documentary is one of 50 films being screened during this year’s Watsonville Film Festival, which runs March 12-21. Nearly 20 of the films being showcased, including Alba’s, are from filmmakers based in Santa Cruz County. “The Long Labor” will be screened in Watsonville on March 14. 

“Maria is amazing. She’s super inspiring,” Alba said of the film’s subject. During the pandemic, she and Ávila-Hanna volunteered with Ramos Bracamontes, helping create herbal remedies for healing clinics — community spaces that provide holistic healing by incorporating Indigenous spiritual practices — for campesinas (farmworkers). Ramos Bracamontes also distributes kits with menstrual products and gathers monetary donations to help families pay rent. 

Alba recalls having a conversation with Ávila-Hanna in 2021 about a potential return to filmmaking. “I said to her, ‘If I ever make a documentary again, I want to do it about Maria,’” she said. “She said, ‘Me too! Somebody needs to document Maria, and I would love to do it.’ And we were like, ‘Let’s do it together.’” 

Ramos Bracamontes began her mutual aid project during the pandemic to support women who worked in agriculture and had no access to government benefits such as health care due to their immigration status. She worked with the Center for Farmworker Families during its monthly food distributions to offer menstrual supplies. 

“The work has evolved,” said Ramos Bracamontes. Now, she continues to host healing clinics and community círculos every month in South County for undocumented farmworkers. Ramos Bracamontes also kick-started a doula training program to help support Indigenous women throughout pregnancy and childbirth. 

When Alba and Ávila-Hanna first began filming, Ramos Bracamontes was just starting her journey as a certified nurse-midwife, she said. “I was just trying to find my own way of doing midwifery,” she said. 

Ramos Bracamontes told Lookout she feels flattered and honored that Alba wanted to create a documentary about her.

“What’s really inspiring about the film is that it shows mutual aid and systems of care in action” and demonstrates how volunteers support Ramos Bracamontes’ work, said Alba.

Alba filmed the birth of one of Ramos Bracamontes’ patients at Watsonville Community Hospital. Film festival attendees will get a glimpse at how a midwife creates a calming space for childbirth. Ramos Bracamontes told Lookout that she strives to create a ceremonial atmosphere, despite the chaotic energy of a hospital. 

“Because birth is a ceremony, so I wanted to create that,” she said. “I had flowers, we had cards. We also had aromatherapy, just a calm environment.” 

Alba said centering Ramos Bracamontes and her work in the film is an antidote to the attacks on the immigrant and Latino communities happening around the country right now. “Just the way she shows up for people and the way she talks about who these women are is super powerful,” Alba said. 

It’s important to uplift the Indigenous community in Watsonville and the work that supports them, Alba said. “The Long Labor” showcases the legacy of Ramos Bracamontes’ work as a woman and as an immigrant, she said. 

While the film has already screened at the San Francisco Film Festival, Alba said presenting it in Watsonville feels like a homecoming because Ramos Bracamontes’ work is rooted in this community and has earned the support of many people in South County. 

Ramos Bracamontes said she hopes that those who watch “The Long Labor” remember they are powerful and can help people no matter what situation they are in. She added that midwifery goes beyond the labor and clinic rooms, and it involves the spiritual, emotional and social aspects of life. 

“I’m very proud to be an Indigenous midwife working within this system,” Ramos Bracamontes said. “Out of everything — that’s what I’m the most proud of, to show beautiful, indigenous birth.” 

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More on the 2026 Watsonville Film Festival

The 14th annual Watsonville Film Festival, running March 12-21, will feature 50 films, mostly short films and documentaries, plus six feature-length films. 

This year’s festival theme, “Art as Resistance,” is a response to national conversations about immigrants and the Latino community. Every cultural expression in the community is a form of resistance and a way to “affirm our existence and how we affirm the contributions to this country,” Alba said. 

“Libertad,” a feature-length documentary directed by Brenda Ávila-Hanna, follows Alejandra Libertad, an Indigenous transgender woman from Oaxaca who lives in Santa Cruz County, and her journey seeking asylum. That film plays March 14 in Watsonville. 

Alba said the festival includes horror films this year because many young filmmakers are interested in the genre. One of the films being featured, “El Regreso Del Miedo” (“The Return of Fear”), directed by UC Santa Cruz alum Berenice Manzano Castro, is about a Chicano teen being forced to relive discrimination that his immigrant parents experienced, while being followed by a mysterious figure. That film plays March 13 in Watsonville and March 19 in Salinas. 

The festival will be screening films in Watsonville, Santa Cruz and Salina. To view the full festival program or purchase tickets, visit the Watsonville Film Festival website. 

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